Arto Klemola
Motivations Behind Prosocial Behaviour
Why Plan Finland‟s long-term volunteers participate in the work
and how they communicate about it to others.
Metropolia University of Applied
Sciences
Bachelor of Social Sciences
Social Services
Bachelor‟s Thesis
Tiivistelmä
Tekijä(t)
Otsikko
Arto Klemola
Motivaatiot prososiaalisen käytöksen takana.
Sivumäärä
Aika
60 sivua + 2 liitettä
Syksy 2013
Tutkinto
Sosionomi
Koulutusohjelma
Sosionomi
Suuntautumisvaihtoehto
Sosionomi
Ohjaaja(t)
Jukka Törnroos
Terhi Salokannel-Stenberg
Tämän tutkimuksen tarkoitus oli kartoittaa Plan Suomen pitkäaikaisvapaaehtoisten
käyttäytymistä. Plan Suomi kaipasi tietoa siitä mikä motivoi heitä osallistumaan
vapaaehtoistyöhön ja kuinka he kommunikoivat tästä muille. Kerättyä tietoa aiottiin
hyödyntää vapaaehtoisten kanssa käytettyjen työskentelymetodien parantamiseen.
Prososiaalista käytöstä ja motivaatiota tutkivien tiedemiesten suositukset otettiin huomioon
tämän tutkimuksen suunniteluvaiheessa. Nämä suositukset koskivat sitä miten
prososiaalista käytöstä ja motivaatiota kannattaisi tutkia, tässä tutkimuksessa käytetyt
metodit suunniteltiin näiden ohjeiden mukaan. Tutkimuksessa käytetty primäärinen,
kvalitatiivinen data kerättiin haastattelemalla seitsemää pitkäaikaisvapaaehtoista ja sisällön
analyysiä käytettiin litteroitujen haastatteluiden analysoimisessa. Sekundäärinen,
kvantitatiivinen data koostui 76 vastauksesta internet-tutkimukseen, jonka oli organisoinut
Plan Suomen työntekijä. Kyseisessä tutkimuksessa kohderyhmä oli sama kuin
kvalitatiivisessa datassa.
Tulokset paljastivat millaisia motivaatioita pitkäaikaisvapaaehtoisilla oli ennen, nyt sekä
tulevaisuudessa. Altruistiset, egoistiset sekä käytännön motivaatiot näyttivät olevan tämän
prososiaalisen käytöksen takana. Motivaatiot muuttuivat ajan myötä, ennen
vapaaehtoistyön aloittamista olleet motivaatiot olivat erilaisia kuin nykyiset sekä
tulevaisuuteen suuntautuneet motivaatiot. Tulokset myös osoittivat miten ja kenelle
vapaaehtoiset kommunikoivat työstään, sekä kuinka halukkaita he olivat tämän käytöksen
lisäämiseen.
Tämän tutkimuksen tulokset saattavat olla hyödyllisiä Plan Suomelle, sillä he voivat
käyttää kerättyä tietoa esimerkiksi vapaaehtoisten määrän lisäämiseen tai nykyisten
vapaaehtoisten motivaation ylläpitämiseen. Tuloksista voi olla hyötyä myös tieteelliselle
yhteisölle. Lisääntynyt tieto siitä mikä motivoi ihmisiä prososiaaliseen käytökseen, tässä
erityisessä kontekstissa, saattaa auttaa muita jotka tutkivat tätä aihetta.
Avainsanat
prososiaalinen käytös, motivaatio, vapaaehtoistyö, Plan Suomi,
sosiaalispsykologia, kommunikaatio
Abstract
Author(s)
Title
Arto Klemola
Motivations Behind Prosocial Behaviour
Number of Pages
Date
60 pages + 2 appendices
Autumn 2013
Degree
Bachelor of Social Services
Degree Programme
Social Services
Specialisation option
Social Services
Instructor(s)
Jukka Törnroos
Terhi Salokannel-Stenberg
The objective of this study was to fill a gap of knowledge concerning the behaviour of Plan
Finland‟s long-term volunteer workers. Plan Finland wanted information about what motivates them to participate in the volunteer work and how they communicate about it to others. This information was to be applied in the development of existing working methods
with the volunteers.
Recommendations of scientists studying motivation and prosocial behaviour were taken
into account when this study was planned. These recommendations focused on how one
should examine motivation and prosocial behaviour, and methods used in this study were
planned accordingly. Primary, qualitative data used in the study were collected by interviewing seven long-term volunteers and content analysis was used to analyse the transcriptions of these interviews. Secondary, quantitative data consisted of 76 replies to an
internet survey, organized by an employee of Plan Finland. The target group of the survey
was the same as in the qualitative data.
The results showed what type of motivations the long-term volunteers had in the past, present and future. Altruistic, egoistic and practical motivations seemed to be behind this prosocial behaviour. The results also pointed out to whom and how often volunteers communicate about their work and how willing they were to expand that behaviour.
The results of this study might be beneficial to Plan Finland since they can use the information for example to increase the number of volunteers or maintain the motivation of the
current ones. The results might also be useful to the scientific community. Increased
knowledge about what motivates prosocial behaviour, in this specific context, could be
useful to others studying this topic.
Keywords
prosocial behaviour, motivation, volunteer work, Plan Finland, social psychology, communication
Content
1
Introduction
1
2
Working Life Partner
3
2.1
Plan International
3
2.2
Plan Finland
4
2.3
Third Work Placement
4
3
4
5
Developmental Needs and Description of the Volunteer Work
5
3.1
Developmental Needs
5
3.2
Description of the Volunteer Work
6
Social Psychology and Prosocial Behaviour
8
4.1
Shortly about Social Psychology
8
4.2
Definitions of Prosocial Behaviour
9
Motivations Behind Prosocial Behaviour
11
5.1
What is Motivation?
12
5.2
Motivations Behind Prosocial Behaviour
13
5.2.1
Egoism
14
5.2.2
Altruism
16
5.2.3
Collectivism and Principlism
18
5.2.4
Other Sources of Motivation for Prosocial Behaviour
19
5.3
General Prosocial Motivations to Participate in Volunteer Work
22
5.4
Research Needs of Volunteerism and Prosocial Motivation
26
6
Research Aims
28
7
Methodology
28
7.1
Subjects
29
7.2
Data
31
7.3
Analysis Techniques
33
7.3.1
34
7.4
8
Triangulation of the Data
Ethicality of the Study
34
Findings and Results
36
8.1
Past Motivations
36
8.2
Present Motivations
39
9
8.3
Role of Community and Reputation of Plan
45
8.4
Future Motivations
46
8.5
How Volunteers Communicate about Plan and Their Work
47
Conclusion
References
Appendixes
Appendix 1 Quotes from the Interviews
Appendix 2 Questions of the Interview
51
57
1
1
Introduction
For what reasons do people help each other? Are motivations for helping in the end
always egoistic and hedonistic or could true altruism be the cause of prosocial behaviour? Can we really ever know the inner motivations of individuals? What is the true
nature of human nature? These are age-old questions that have been asked by philosophers throughout history and they are also studied in this paper.
This Bachelor‟s Thesis studies Plan Finland‟s long-term volunteer workers, what motivates these people to participate in the work and how they communicate about Plan
and their work to other people. Plan Finland is a non-governmental organization that
concentrates on developing wellbeing of children and their communities in developing
countries. The aim is that the results of this thesis will help to improve the quality of
volunteer work within Plan Finland and enrich our knowledge about motivations of prosocial behaviour, in that context.
The terms and theories applied in this study will be introduced more comprehensively
in a sections dedicated to them, however, here are dictionary definitions of the main
concepts. The main theoretical arena revolves around social psychology which is defined by Oxford Dictionaries (2013a) as “the branch of psychology that deals with social
interactions, including their origin and their effects on the individual.” From the field of
social psychology the concept called prosocial behaviour was relevant in the study of
volunteerism and Oxford Dictionaries (2013b) describes prosocial as “relating to or
denoting behaviour which is positive, helpful, and intended to promote social acceptance and friendship.” One focus of this paper was the motivations that spark prosocial activities such as volunteerism. Oxford Dictionaries (2013c) defines motivation in
the following manner “a reason or reasons for acting or behaving in a particular way.”
Prosocial behaviour can be motivated by numerous reasons, nevertheless, typically the
motivations have been identified as altruistic or egoistic. Oxford Dictionaries (2013d)
designates altruism as “disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others”.
Egoism is identified by Oxford Dictionaries (2013e) to be “ethical theory that treats selfinterest as the foundation of morality. One example of egoistic motivation for prosocial
behaviour could be hedonism, Oxford Dictionaries (2013f) establishes it as “ethical
2
theory that pleasure (in the sense of satisfaction of desires) is the highest good and
proper aim of human life.” These definitions should provide a basic understanding to
the reader and ease the transition to this theoretical field.
Prosocial behaviour is quite a new topic in the field of social psychology and studying
of why people help interestingly started from the study of why they failed to help. Following is a famous case study in the literature of prosocial behaviour. The case begins
from a murder of a young woman named Kitty Genovese in 1964. She lived in Queens,
New York. She was stabbed to death in front of her apartment building while 38 people
witnessed the event. The big question was why those people failed to help or even to
call the police in time. John Darley and Bibb Latané gave an answer to this conundrum;
when a person notices a possible emergency situation one must decide if there is a
need for help, then if it is one‟s responsibility to act and whether one can do something
to help. Also the presence of others influences the decision towards inaction. It can be
a case of pluralistic ignorance when all witnesses decide that there is no emergency
since no one appears to be upset or alarmed. Or diffusion of responsibility can decrease the chances of helping, even when one is aware that there is an emergency.
One might feel less obligated to help when there are other witnesses to the event. They
considered the question of what motivates people to help too broad, nevertheless important, thus it was not investigated at that time. (Batson et.al 2007, 242.) Motivation
behind prosocial behaviour became a focus of academic research in the following decades.
Even though this case was an emergency situation, the answer of Darley and Latané
can produce fascinating perspectives on why people help others. Acknowledging the
chain of decisions leading to lack of help might also be used in understanding how
people are motivated to act prosocially. When people perceive the need for help, in this
case for children and their communities around the world, it is the first step towards
possible helping. Then one has to see that one can help, by volunteering, and decide
whether it is one‟s responsibility to act prosocially. This was an example of a cognitive
process that could lead to helping, the mystery here is the motivation that flares up the
actual prosocial deed.
Learning about prosocial behaviour might be even more vital than studying antisocial
behaviour. Understanding how, when and why people help each other enables us, at
3
least theoretically, increase that kind of behaviour. For the first time in human history
we are all truly part of the same interconnected and interdependent global family. With
the ever increasing population, economic, social and environmental issues we need to
see past our differences and start working together for the benefit of all humanity.
Studying motivations of prosocial behaviour, highlighting the needs and goals of people
who help others, might enable us to create a map of possible incentives that could motivate others to participate in similar behaviour. Global change begins from local level
and this small-scale quantitative and qualitative study might reveal some aspects of
motivations behind prosocial behaviour, in the previously mentioned context. Even if
the results were not generalizable outside Plan Finland, this thesis would hopefully
ignite introspection in the reader and enables him or her to consider the role of prosocial behaviour in one‟s own life and the motivation behind it.
2
2.1
Working Life Partner
Plan International
Plan Finland is part of Plan International which was founded over 75 years ago and it is
one of the oldest and largest development cooperation organizations in the world that
focuses on the issues of children and their communities. It began from providing aid to
sponsored children in the civil war of Spain, and sponsoring children still remains as
key part of Plan International‟s actions. During the year 2012 Plan International
reached out to help over 172 million people, from which over 83 million were children. It
operated in 68 countries and development work was done in 50 of those countries situated in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The other countries focused mainly on fundraising. Plan International is politically and religiously nonaligned non-governmental organization. (Plan Suomi Säätiö 2012, 6.)
The vision of Plan International is a world where human rights are respected and all
children have the chance to reach their fullest potential as plenipotentiary members of
society. The mission of Plan International is to permanently improve the quality of life
for children who are living in developing countries. The aim is to work in way that connects people over cultural borders and gives added value to all participants. The core
values of Plan International are; ethicality, human rights, accountability, mutual part-
4
nership, personal empowerment and continuous learning. (Plan Suomi Säätiö 2012, 4,
6, 26.)
Children are in the main focus of everything that Plan does. Plan is working together
with children, their families, whole communities, organizations and local governments
to bring positive change to them. Plan´s work is linked to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child which aims to guarantee human rights for children. Plan
has a client-centered approach to the work it does, children are consulted about how
they perceive their rights, needs and concerns. Children are also supported to take an
active role in discovering solutions to their problems. (Plan International 2013.) Later in
this paper Plan International is simply referred to as Plan.
2.2
Plan Finland
Plan Finland is an independent organization which is part of Plan and is also politically
and religiously nonaligned non-governmental organization. Plan Finland operates with
similar values, vision and mission as Plan. The fundraising for operations of Plan takes
place in 20 countries and Finland is one of those countries. Plan Finland is one the
most important development cooperation organizations in the country and leading child
sponsor organization. It is a significant expert in children‟s rights and development politics within Finland. Plan Finland is a long term partnership organization of the Finnish
Foreign Ministry, with the funding of Foreign Ministry it has been able to improve the
rights of poor and disadvantaged children directly in 15 countries. As the gathered
funds are sent to Plan, Plan Finland is indirectly helping children and their communities
in 50 countries. Plan Finland operates also within Finland; it educates and informs
people about current issues in developing countries, situation of the children and their
rights. (Plan Suomi Säätiö 2013, 2, 4.)
2.3
Third Work Placement
It is relevant to the validity and credibility of this study to mention that I did my third
work placement in Plan Finland. It lasted four months and took place in the spring of
2013. While working there the idea and topic of this thesis started to become clearer
and it was decided that the Bachelor‟s Thesis would be done in cooperation with Plan
5
Finland. The developmental challenges of the working life partner were answered by
consulting my supervisors in the work placement.
Those individuals were Iida-Maria Aalto who was working in the fundraising department, and the coordinator of volunteer workers within Plan Finland, Karoliina Tikka.
Together we contemplated on many occasions what would be beneficial and interesting area of study for all parties involved. We came to the conclusion that the topic
would touch the area where I was doing my work practice, organizing and developing
volunteer work within fundraising department of Plan Finland.
The choice of this area for the study was logical and topical since Plan Finland was in
the process of developing and expanding the volunteer work methods. Also I was part
of that development process during the work practice, for instance one of my duties
was invention of new fundraising methods for the volunteers. The work increased my
knowledge about current volunteer work methods and I acquainted myself with some of
the volunteer workers.
Working together with the people who coordinated the volunteer workers of Plan Finland and personally organizing fundraising events, provided a good opportunity to
study this topic in-depth. Experiencing first-hand the coordination of volunteer workers
enabled me to understand possible developmental needs from the perspective of the
organization. And encountering volunteer workers at the events and socializing with
them, provided insights about their motivations and needs. In essence, the experience
gained during the work practice greatly increased my understanding of the context and
topic of this study.
3
3.1
Developmental Needs and Description of the Volunteer Work
Developmental Needs
The possible area of this study was discussed multiple times with the aforementioned
persons, Iida-Maria Aalto and Karoliina Tikka. The conclusion was to fill a clear gap of
knowledge, what motivates the Plan Finland‟s long-term volunteer workers (those who
have been participating in it for over one year) and how they communicate about Plan
6
and their work to others. Both persons expressed that it had been an area which Plan
Finland needed information from, though, they did not have the time to study it within
their normal working schedules. Discovering what motivates the prosocial behaviour of
the volunteers might produce insights in how to recruit new volunteers, increase their
long-term commitment or at least how to support and maintain the motivations of the
current volunteers. The information provided by this study will be used in developing
the quality of volunteer work methods within Plan Finland in the near future. Another
part of the study was to find out whether the volunteer workers would be willing to
communicate more about Plan and their work to others. This information could also
help in the development process of the volunteer work.
The study was designed from the beginning to provide research data, rather than tangible and functional solutions for Plan Finland. This bachelor thesis would become part
of a larger development process of volunteer work that was going on within the organization at the time of my work practice. This development process was planned to continue for years to come. Part of previously mentioned process was another bachelor
level study done by Kemppainen (2013) that focused on the motivations of the regional
coordinators of the volunteer workers, who were themselves, volunteers. The study of
Kemppainen differs from this study since the focus here is the behaviour of „ordinary
volunteers‟. It is a larger and more diverse group, whose opinions are valued highly by
the staff of Plan Finland and estimated crucial for the development of the volunteer
work in general.
When the topic of the thesis was refined, together with Aalto and Tikka, they also assisted in shaping of the interview questions and pointed out the irrelevant ones regarding the needs of Plan Finland. All these efforts were aimed to answer the research
question of this bachelor thesis: What motivates the long-term volunteer workers of
Plan Finland to participate in the activities and how they communicate about Plan and
their work to others.
3.2
Description of the Volunteer Work
There are many forms of volunteer work one can do for Plan Finland; office work,
translation of reports and letters, organising exhibitions, participation to events, sharing
professional skills, promoting Plan in media or in the internet. There are also other sec-
7
tions of volunteer work within Plan Finland, such as working with adolescent immigrants and their parents, Children‟s Board that is aimed to 12-17 years old individuals
and Mitä?-network which is aimed to young adults between 18 and 30. People who did
volunteer work in these other sections were not the subjects of this study. (Plan Suomi
2013.)
Volunteer work at the office consisted from various tasks such as preparing Plan merchandise for events, checking, sending and receiving the mail between sponsored children and their sponsors and other current work tasks that could be delegated to volunteers. Translating took place in the office when it came to the mail between sponsored
children and sponsors due to privacy and security reasons, though, reports could be
translated at home and sent to office via email. Events focusing on various issues were
organized by Plan Finland and volunteer workers themselves, biggest event of the year
2013 was World Village Festival in Helsinki where over 30 volunteer workers participated in the activities. In events volunteers typically sold merchandise, provided information about Plan to people and raised awareness about a current issue.
Volunteer work is a vital part of Plan Finland‟s operations, even though there are over
50 people working in the office of Plan Finland, it could not function as it does without
the volunteer workers. First of all, volunteer work saves expenses, and more funds can
be directed towards helping children and their communities in developing countries.
Secondly, the office is located in Helsinki hence the operations would be limited to
south of Finland without the 14 different regional volunteer groups which organize
events and other Plan related activities around Finland. Thirdly, volunteer work is rooted in the work of Plan Finland, and in the work of NGOs in general, when Plan Finland
was founded in 1998 it held even greater importance in the operations when there were
only few paid workers. Significance of volunteer work for Plan Finland, and society in
general, heightens the importance of studying it. Next the theoretical side of this study
is presented and helping behaviour is observed with social psychological lenses.
8
4
4.1
Social Psychology and Prosocial Behaviour
Shortly about Social Psychology
People have been studying human nature most likely for thousands of years and first
recorded thoughts about the issue were written down by ancient philosophers of the
first civilizations. For example Plato‟s and Aristotle‟s thoughts about nature of humankind have rippled through time to social psychology and other academic disciplines,
and still affect them to a degree. Do people help others only to help themselves and
need an authoritative hand to guide them to right direction or do they naturally work
together and combine their talents in building a good society? To what level behaviour,
and especially social behaviour, is guided by external constraints and internal drives?
At the beginning of 20th century social psychology started to tackle these philosophical
questions about human nature by using the scientific method. First it focused on questions concerning broad impact of groups on individuals and later it peered deeper to
questions of social influence and social perception. Social psychology was firmly recognized as a separate scientific discipline few decades later, in the early 1930s. (Goethals 2007, 3-6.)
Social psychology is defined by Smith and Mackie (2007, 5) as “scientific study of the
effects of social and cognitive processes on the way individuals perceive, influence,
and relate to others.” It is the scientific method that distinguishes it from common-sense
knowledge that has similar goals, to understand how and why people behave in a particular way in social situations. Systematic gathering and analysing of data increases its
validity and consequently social psychology tends to avoid the misconceptions and
shortcuts of common-sense knowledge. (Smith & Mackie 2007, 5.)
According to Smith and Mackie (2007, 6-7), interaction between people consists from
social and cognitive processes. Social processes can be understood as ways how
one‟s thoughts, feelings and actions are swayed by people within one‟s close social
circles, lessons learned in school or at home, norms of dominating social group and
other pressures that guide one‟s actions. Cognitive processes could be described as
ways how one‟s memories, perceptions, thoughts, emotions and motivations influence
the way one comprehends the world and one‟s actions. Emotion and motivation are
essential part of cognitive process together with memory and thought, modern social
9
psychology discards the old dichotomy between rational thought and irrational emotions. All actions are thought to be grounded to the way how one believes the world is
like. Smith and Mackie continued to clarify, although social and cognitive processes
were defined separately they are indissolubly intertwined. Social processes impact
one‟s behaviour even when there are no other people nearby, other people‟s assumed
reactions and expectations manipulate our actions even in private situations. Second
way social processes affect one‟s behaviour is when others are nearby, the way one
deciphers those people and their actions depends on one‟s cognitive processes. (Smith
& Mackie 2007, 6-7.)
Smith and Mackie describe the two main axioms in social psychology: construction of
reality, what is considered real by an individual depends on his or hers cognitive and
social processes. And pervasiveness of social influence, other people effect on all of
individual‟s feelings, thoughts, and behaviour whether they are present or not. Social
influence is at its strongest when it is least obvious, when it is moulding one‟s core
views and assumptions about the world without one being aware of it. (Smith & Mackie
2007, 15-16.)
Illuminating social and cognitive processes of people can help us to understand why
people behave in way they do and in the end possibly help us to resolve concrete social issues. Now that the theoretical field of social psychology was shortly introduced, it
is time to narrow the focus to one part of social psychology, prosocial behaviour.
4.2
Definitions of Prosocial Behaviour
The main theme of this Bachelor‟s Thesis revolves around prosocial behaviour and
reasons what motivate that kind of behaviour. Thus it is imperative to define and understand prosocial behaviour as a concept before moving into the questions about motivations that ignite it. Definition of prosocial behaviour has evolved through time as it
has been examined more and more. First the earliest definitions will be described followed by modern ones, progressing in chronological order.
In the early definitions of prosocial behaviour some researchers (Mussen & EisenbergBerg 1977, cited in Underwood & Moore 1982) argued that it required some cost or
sacrifice for the actor and should be done without anticipation of an external reward.
10
Others (Staub 1978, cited in Underwood & Moore 1982) made a difference between
prosocial behaviour and altruism by stating that prosocial behaviour is something that
benefits others and it does not matter if the actor gains benefits from it. (Underwood &
Moore 1982, 27.)
Bar-tal and Raviv (1982, 199) describes Prosocial behaviour “as an antithesis of negative forms of social behavior, is a wide category that encompasses such behaviors
helping, cooperation, or exchange. It is defined as behavior that benefits another person [sic].”
Reykowski (1982) gave this rather rounded definition three decades ago:
“The term prosocial behavior covers a wide range of phenomena such as helping, sharing, self-sacrifice, and norm observing. All those phenomena have one
common characteristic – namely, that an individual‟s action is oriented toward
protection, maintenance, or enhancement of well-being of an external social object: a specific person, a group, a society as a whole, a social institution or a
symbolic being, for example, an ideology or system of morality.” (Reykowski
1982, 378.)
One thing is clear, prosocial behaviour is always voluntary and intentional and should
be separated from behaviour that accidently benefited another person. Altruistic and
prosocial behaviour can be easily mixed up since it is difficult to expose the internal
motivation behind the actions. Prosocial behaviour was defined by researchers (Mussen & Eisenberg-Berg 1977, cited in Eisenberg 1982) as behaviour that aimed to help
others intentionally and voluntarily and where the motive was unspecified, unknown or
not altruistic. (Eisenberg 1982, 6.)
Prosocial behaviour and attitudes projected towards individuals and groups with whom
one is not in direct contact, donating time and skills to tasks that help impoverished
children in other countries can certainly be considered as a prosocial act. Also advocating for the social change that will in the end improve the welfare of others somewhere
in the world can be considered as prosocial behaviour. (Mussen 1982, 363.) This definition corresponds well with the activities of the Plan Finland‟s volunteer workers.
Nearly a decade later by Miller et al. (1991, 54) gave a following description; as studying of positive behaviours such as sharing, helping and donating have increased in
11
recent years and it has been given a new name; prosocial behaviours which stand for
voluntary behaviours that are intended to benefit others. Finnish social psychologist
Helkama, Myllyniemi and Liebkind defines prosocial behaviour in similar fashion; as
voluntary behaviour that benefits other individuals or communities and is not based on
professional duties or agreements (Eskola 2001, 203).
During this millennium prosocial behaviour is defined in an analogous matter by Smith
and Mackie (2007, 517) as behaviour where the immediate aim is to help or benefit
others, determining factor being on the intentions that the actions were carried out rather than on the consequences of those actions. When all previously noted definitions
are summed up, certain thematic areas of prosocial behaviour become evident. It is
behaviour one does consciously and willingly without any professional obligations and
it is aimed to improve the wellbeing of individuals or groups that can be known or unknown to the person. Spotlight points to the intention of the actions. This begs the
question of what motivates individuals to engage in prosocial behaviour.
Bierhoff (2002, 10) points out that a longstanding issue still persists in our time; finding
out the source of internal motivations of people by empirical tests. This makes separation between prosocial behaviour and altruistic problematic at best. One cannot observe feeling states such as personal distress and empathic concern directly. This is
partly a semantic issue, it depends on how one defines altruistic and prosocial behaviour, and whether it is acceptable if the actor gains something from helping others. This
study is part of the academic odyssey which attempts to peer into the source of prosocial motivations. Can true altruism exist or do the actors always gain some inner or
social perks when helping others? What are the typical motivations that make people
help each other? In the next chapter helping behaviour and motivations behind it are
examined from various theoretical perspectives.
5
Motivations Behind Prosocial Behaviour
First we could start to ponder what type of behaviour is deemed good in a society and
for what reason. Logically deducting it should be something that in some way, according to moral values and norms of a culture, benefits individuals, groups of people or the
whole society at certain level. A prosocial behaviour is not necessarily good for all the
individuals living in the society, for example in-group favouritism can lead to racism and
12
other negative behaviour towards minorities. What is thought as good behaviour is culture specific and varies through time. When one considers a definition of prosocial behaviour in modern times and in the context of Western culture, it could be described in
the following manner. As actions that benefit the wellbeing of individuals or groups, in
the spirit of democracy and respect of human rights. Before travelling deeper, a quick
glance towards motivation and how it is understood.
5.1
What is Motivation?
Yeung (2005a, 84-85) states that one can inspect motivation from various scientific
disciplines, however, most of motivation research is found from the field of psychology.
Motivations are referred in psychology as inner and outer factors that enable people to
act. The way how motivations have been perceived has changed throughout history, in
the early days of psychology the focus was on separating reactions whereas in modern
times motivations are seen in a more holistic way. In the first motivational theories people were seen as reactive organisms that obeyed inner and outer forces such as needs
and instincts. Famous scientists from that era were for example Freud and Maslow.
Yeung continues to clarify that later the focus of psychological research of motivation
shifted to self-image and believes, cognitive factors and emotions. David McClelland
(1958; 1961, cited in Yeung 2005a, 85) was the first one to include the three main
components of motivation that are still used today; direction, energyzation and regulation of behaviour. According to Ford (1992, cited in Yeung 2005a, 86) motivation consists from personal goals, emotions, self-image and believes. For research of voluntary
work it was important to note that motivation was not classified as hierarchical, and
multiple goals can direct behaviour simultaneously. This statement also agrees with
common sense, one has more motivation do something when one has multiple reasons
to do it. (Yeung 2005a, 85-86.)
Yeung states that motivation of the volunteer workers is the foundation of its existence.
Research of volunteer worker‟s motivation is vital for two key reasons; first one is that
personal motivation of volunteer workers enables and continuity of the volunteer work,
second reason is that motivation of volunteer workers provides a suitable research area for commitment and participation in postmodern times. (Yeung 2005a, 83.)
13
Batson et al. (2007, 243) reports that during the past 25 years social psychologists
have tried to answer to the question of what motivates people to help by referencing to
data. They have relied on general theories of motivation such as those which stem
from the work of Sigmund Freud and Clark Hull. The most important influence came
from the motivational theories of Kurt Lewin, who perceived motives as goal-directed
forces within the life space of a person. This is the way social psychologists, who have
tried to find out what motivates our concern for others, perceived motives.
Batson et al. (2007, 243) states: “Thinking of motives as goal-directed forces allows
one to distinguish among instrumental goals, ultimate goals, and unintended consequences. An instrumental goal is sought as means to reach some other goal. An ultimate goal is sought as an end itself. An unintended consequence is a result of acting to
reach a goal but is not itself sought as a goal.” These terms will be used later in this
paper when the motivations of prosocial behaviour are examined.
When motivation is dissected with scientific method, it appears to be constructed from
several different pieces. Considering the scope of this study it is sufficient to note that
motivation is not a simple part of human behaviour. Now, after a brief overview of motivation, it is time to present the common motivations behind prosocial behaviour.
5.2
Motivations Behind Prosocial Behaviour
Acknowledging whether behaviour is prosocial or not, answers only to the question of
what is occurring. One needs to ask why a person is behaving prosocially in order to
find out the source or sources of motivation behind the activity. Why question is complicated one and asking it only once might not yield any substantial answers. One
needs to ask it multiple times or try to deduct plausible motives, with the help of scientific theories, in order to reveal why a person acted in the specific way.
Batson et al. (2007, 243) declares four possible ultimate goals behind prosocial behaviour: benefiting oneself, egoism, benefiting another individual, altruism, benefiting a
group, collectivism and upholding a moral principle, principlism. Batson et al. also notes
that these goals are not mutually exclusive; individual can have one or all of them as
ultimate goal while he or she is behaving in a prosocial manner. These and other possible motivations of prosocial behaviour are examined as we go further.
14
5.2.1
Egoism
As it was mentioned above, numerous motives might influence a single act and for this
reason it is challenging to interpret the true motivation behind the act. Smith and Mackie describe egoism, as the desire to obtain personal rewards and that it could explain
prosocial behaviour even when no concrete rewards are received. One might gain
positive feeling as a reward from helping. They also posed a question, whether it is
even possible for people to think, feel or act for the greater good of others without being motivated by self-interest? (Smith & Mackie 2007, 518.) Instinctively egoism would
make the most sense when behaviour is observed from the perspective of evolution,
when individual is trying to maximize social advantages in order to improve the probability of passing on one‟s genes. It might not be this simple as we see when motivations
for prosocial behaviour are observed other perspectives.
Batson et al. reviews how motivations of prosocial behaviour had been understood in
the past. They were considered to be in the domain of philosophy, and many philosophers thought that everything one does is done in the end to benefit oneself, even
when one helps others. This majority view in Western philosophy guided the thinking all
the way to the 20th century; humans were commonly seen as egoistic in the field of
psychology, economics and political science. Surely humans are able help others only
to benefit from it themselves and when the ultimate goal is self-benefit motivation is
considered as egoistic. Batson created a list of possible self-benefits one might gain
from helping another person, in these cases supported by empirical evidence, prosocial
behaviour is instrumental goal done to reach the ultimate egoistic goal. When considered from the point of view of volunteer work in Plan Finland, relevant goals from the
list for the volunteers could be; reciprocity credit, thanks, esteem, praise, honour, enhanced self-image, mood enhancement and empathic joy. Goals to be avoided could
be; sanctions for norm violation, shame, guilt and empathy costs or reduce of aversive
arousal. (Batson et al. 2007, 242-243.)
Batson et al. (2007, 244) continues to explain these terms, reciprocity credit can be
understood as self-benefit when a person helps another one and is aware that the individual who was helped is indebted the helper after the deed. Considering volunteer
work at Plan Finland this cannot be the case as such, however, some people could act
prosocially even though they know the targets are not able to return the favour. Those
15
people help due to believe in generalized reciprocity, a feeling that one receives in
equal measure to what one gives to the world in general. Another motivation might be
that prosocial behaviour improves the person‟s reputation as helpful and compassionate individual, this in turn might increase the likelihood of others trusting and helping
that individual.
Mood enhancement can lead to helping, when a person feels bad he or she might act
prosocially to improve one‟s mood, one can feel better since helping others is considered as a good deed. Also if a person feels good prosocial behaviour can improve that
mental state and maintain the positive feeling. The volunteer workers might at first participate to the activities to enhance their mood and associate it with pleasurable experiences that increases positive feelings, later they would continue this learned behaviour
to achieve this egoistic goal. (Batson et al. 2007, 244.)
According to Batson et al. (2007, 245-246) many psychologist have suggested norm of
social responsibility as motivation for prosocial behaviour. That norm dictates that one
should help a person who is dependent for one‟s help and no one else is around to
help. It has been difficult to find evidence for the existence of this norm since it is quite
vague and focus on personal norms, internalized rules of conduct that are acquired
from social interaction, might provide better results. When personal norms are applied
to prosocial behaviour it involves a sense of obligation to help in certain situations. Personal norms might predict behaviour better than general social norms, participating in
volunteer work could be driven by the need to fulfill this obligation rather intention to
benefit others.
It also could be that volunteers are trying to reduce aversive arousal, being aware that
someone is suffering on the other side of the planet is unpleasant to those individuals.
As instrumental goal they do volunteer work to reduce their own unpleasant feelings
that arise from the knowledge of suffering individuals, thus, the ultimate goal is egoistic.
Prosocial motivation could also arise from escaping discrepancy, observing the real
state of the world (for example suffering children) and comparing it to ideal state one
considers the world could be. The cognitive inconsistency produced from the realization can motivate the individual to reduce it by doing for example volunteer work. In this
situation helping others was an instrumental goal and in the end benefited the mental
state of the helper. (Batson et al. 2007, 245-246.)
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5.2.2
Altruism
Egoism might be an easier concept to comprehend than altruism. One can easily perceive why a person would help others in order to help oneself, however, helping for the
sake of helping is a more clandestine topic. First definitions of altruism will be presented from few decades ago and after that altruism is observed from the point of view of
modern social science.
Definitions of altruism tend to contain tacit concepts of self-sacrifice, empathy, noble
actions, and lack of expectation of external gain for the actor. And the endeavor of defining altruism for research purposes poses substantial difficulties, since, many types of
prosocial interventions may or may not contain elements of altruism. (Zahn-Waxler &
Radke-Yarrow 1982, 110.)
Bar-Tal and Raviv (1982, 199) defines altruism as “one type of helping act that is the
highest level of quality, is defined as voluntary and intentional behavior carried out for
its own end to benefit a person, as a result of moral conviction in justice and without
expectations for external rewards [sic].” Krebs (1982, 73) defines altruism in a different
manner, not necessarily as moral or just behaviour but as an idea of giving more than
one‟s share or normally should give entailing a violation of balance of reciprocity that
defines justice.
Nearly a decade later Swap (1991, 156) gave a definition of altruism form the perspective of a „naive‟ observer; “behavior intended to, and resulting in, benefit to a needy
recipient unrelated to the actor; that does not intentionally benefit the actor or, especially, that involves some sacrifice by the actor; and which occurs outside a normal helping, or despite a help-inhibiting role.” Swap (1991, 147-148) also ponders whether the
existence of truly self-less behaviour depend on how the term is interpreted, such as
relevancy of personal sacrifice as a requisite for altruism. If the actor receives unexpected psychological benefits (for instance tension relief), is the prosocial behaviour
considered as something else than altruistic? He noted that revealing the source of the
motivation for altruistic behaviour either within the person or in the context of the situation, helps in predicting the actor‟s probable behaviour in the future.
17
Batson et al. notes an enthralling question about helping behaviour, relevant for philosophers of the past, and modern social scientist. Whether it is possible to find evidence
of altruistic motivation for prosocial behaviour? Is it possible that pure altruism exist, a
person can have only the wellbeing of another as an ultimate goal? One argument
against it comes from Edward Tolman (1923, cited in Batson et al. 2007, 247) known
as psychological hedonism. Even if person could be motivated on helping another he
or she would be pleased by achieving the desired goal thus the behaviour would be
motivated by egoism. Philosophers have pointed out the flaw in this logic; confusion
arises from two diverse forms of psychological hedonism. Strong form is where personal pleasure is at all times the motivation behind actions and weak form is where
goal attainment always brings pleasure to the actor. Latter is not contradictory to the
possibility that ultimate goal of an action is to increase the wellbeing of another, instead
of oneself. It is at least theoretically possible that self-benefits gained from helping another are only instrumental goals and ultimate goal would be altruistic. Question begs
for more empirical evidence and remains to be seen. (Batson et al. 2007, 247.)
When a person acknowledges that someone is in need of help empathic emotions such
as sympathy and compassion tend to arise. The empathy-altruism hypothesis states
that these emotions create motivation where the ultimate goal is improving the welfare
of the other person who ignited these empathic feelings, hence the behaviour is altruistic. The most commonly presented egoistic rationalization for this behaviour is aversive-arousal reduction, according to it feeling empathy for a suffering person is unpleasant and people help others in order to reduce these feelings. In many laboratory
experiments the results have supported empathy-altruism hypothesis instead of aversive-arousal rationalization. Another relevant egoistic claim is empathy-specific reward,
according to that people learn through socialization that special rewards in the form of
esteem, honour and pride are associated on helping a person for whom the feel empathy. People help those individuals in hope of gaining those rewards. Other possibility
was that instead of helping to gain rewards of seeing oneself or being seen by others
as a helpful person. (Batson et al. 2007, 247-248.)
Smith and Mackie (2007, 529-530) argue that humans are often motivated by feeling
of empathy to relieve distress of another person no matter to personal rewards and
costs. They also summarized well the empathy-altruism model; stating that people experience two types of feelings when they see a person in distress, personal distress
18
(anxiety and fear) or empathic concern (sympathy and compassion). Personal distress
motivates them to help for egoistic reasons, aiming to reduce actor‟s negative feelings
and empathic concern on the other hand creates altruistic motivation where the actor
helps to reduce the distress of a person.
Eskola (2001, 203) notes similar issues; motivations behind prosocial behaviour do not
only consist from sacrificing altruism that is based on sense of ethical responsibility, but
also from hedonistic altruism where the person will receive a better feeling after the
work. Motivation can also simply be decreasing of anxiety that is created from seeing
others suffer.
Helping that is motivated by altruism is probably the most difficult one to prove when
compared finding evidence for egoistic and other sources of motivation for helping.
Illusive nature of altruism makes it an interesting concept, its existence is partly depended on how it is defined. Consequently I shall attempt to give one definition for prosocial behaviour that is motivated by altruism in the context of volunteer work: it should
be behaviour where the actor has only the need to help other people through the volunteer work and personal rewards, psychological or social, should be minimal or nonexistent. The main debate of what motivates prosocial behaviour fluctuates between
egoistic and altruistic, nonetheless, there are also other sources of motivation for helping.
5.2.3
Collectivism and Principlism
According to Batson et al. the egoism-altruism debate has been in the centre of attention in the study of prosocial motivations for the past quarter century, though, two other
sources of motivation are worth of contemplation. One is collectivism where the motivation and ultimate goal is to improve the wellbeing of a particular group as a whole. In
the context of volunteer work of Plan Finland it would be children and their communities. Then again it can be a case of enlightened self-interested, indirect form of egoism,
where those who help, help themselves by improving the wellbeing of others on a
global scale. (Batson et al. 2007, 250.)
Moral philosophers have supported other type of prosocial motivation due to illusive
nature of altruism and empathy. And pointed out a possibility where collectivism can
19
harm an outside group due to its limitations to focus on benefits of just one group of
individuals. The philosophers support the idea of principlism, where the ultimate goal is
to uphold a universal and impartial moral principle, for example justice. This raises the
question of whether it is even possible to act only to uphold a moral principle. And is
that just an instrumental goal that in the end benefits oneself, turning the motivation
towards egoistic direction. For example by avoiding social and self-punishments of
shame and guilt when one does the right thing. Humans seem to be able to rationalize,
quite effortlessly, one‟s behaviour to others and oneself. Stating why certain behaviour
helps those who one cares about and is not contradictory to one‟s moral principles.
Again it is at least theoretically possible that upholding a moral principle can be an ultimate goal thus making principlism a possible motivation for prosocial behaviour. (Batson et al. 2007, 251.)
5.2.4
Other Sources of Motivation for Prosocial Behaviour
It is neither relevant nor logical to create a long list of possible sources of motivation
behind prosocial behaviour, nonetheless, few other sources are described since they
are prominent in the literature of social psychology and helping behaviour. Rephrasing
Bierhoff‟s views, starting from a grander perspective, one can reflect whether prosocial
behaviour is a result of natural selection or cultural institutions that were designed to
increase cooperation and solidarity in people. How interconnected part of human nature is altruism, if it exists, or is it the result of pressure from cultural institutions on predominantly egoistic human beings? Responsible behaviour is relative concept that depends on internalized standards of behaviour, these standards are partly founded on
natural selection and partly on social settings. Helping behaviour is probably a result of
natural selection which was guided by reproductive success. Prosocial behaviour is
common among close kin and relatives, this aims to maximising the survival rate of
familiar gene pool. Prosocial behaviour is not limited to family since human beings are
social group animals and evolution has favoured cooperative tendencies. (Bierhoff
2002, 41-43.)
Smith and Mackie remarks that one answer for this type behaviour could reside beneath the skin, first thought might be that all actions which reduce the reproduction
chance of individual such risking one‟s life to save another or simply sharing one‟s resources would go against principles of natural selection. However, more refined evolu-
20
tionary theory proposes that selection occurs at the level of the gene and not by the
organism that carries the gene, thus prosocial behaviour could benefit the passing on
of certain genes. Humans are not bound to instinctive behaviour dictated by their genes
due to their cognitive abilities and emotional responses to surrounding environment,
which can guide helping behaviour. Humans help those who they care about, typically
next of kin, and this behaviour is most likely due to naturally selected tendency. (Smith
& Mackie 2007, 524-526.)
There should not be a barrier between natural and social sciences. They are just different ways of looking at the same whole. Evolutional factors affect social behaviour, to
what degree, that is a topic for another research. It is still noteworthy to give some
amount of attention to evolutionary perspective. From previously presented facts one
could speculate that if one perceives human species as one family, it would be natural
to extend help even to people one has never met and are living on the other side of the
planet. This would for example benefit the gene pool of humanity as a whole. Conscious of it or not, natural selection could be one factor that influences the motivations
of the volunteers.
Social effects in motivation of prosocial behaviour are the other side the coin when
compared to the biological tendencies of humans. Cultural norms have a huge influence on moral reasoning. This in turn partly defines what importance one places on
self-gain or emphatic concern. Far Eastern cultures may highlight the connectedness of
individual with the group more than Western cultures such as American or English (or
Finnish). Latter tend to emphasize individualistic culture where independence of individuals is valued more highly than in the Far East. These cultural differences instead
might affect if, how, when and where prosocial behaviour occurs. This collective vs.
individual contrast demonstrates just on side of how culture might influence the way an
individual perceives responsibility and how he or she might act towards those in need.
(Bierhoff 2002, 44-45.)
Empathy was already reviewed before in this paper and Bierhoff (2002, 139-140) stated that it has been considered as primary motivation for prosocial behaviour for several
years. Nonetheless, in the past decade the focus has changed to guilt as motivator for
this type of behaviour. Both emotions refer to perceived suffering of others and relate
positively to prosocial behaviour. The distinction between guilt and empathy is that, in
21
guilt there is an awareness of being the cause of the suffering, while empathy is a bystander emotion. Guilt is an unwelcome emotion that develops when one‟s behaviour is
not equivalent to one‟s moral or ethical standards. Relevant to prosocial motivation to
do volunteer work at Plan Finland could be one form of guilt called guilt over affluence.
Bierhoff discuss about guilt over affluence, he states that society and the world, is filled
with examples of inequality and underprivileged people. Some individuals ignore the
facts and others highly empathic persons might be motivated to act in prosocial manner
to remove those social issues. Hoffman (2000, cited in Bierhoff 2002, 155) coined the
term guilt over affluence which refers to people who live in privileged condition, such as
those in the Western world. These people realise that their living standards result to
suffering on the other side of the planet, one‟s wellbeing is linked to pain of others and
this insight can lead to feelings of guilt over affluence. One can either rationalize that
he or she is not responsible for the suffering of others thus reducing the feelings of guilt
over affluence or one can act in prosocial manner to reduce these feelings. It is important to note that recognizing the difference between guilt and empathy can be extremely challenging, however, this can be one motivator to do volunteer work in cooperation development work sector. (Bierhoff 2002, 155.) This would be a case where the
ultimate motivation is egoistic, reducing the unwelcomed feelings of guilt.
One last relevant motivator for prosocial behaviour could be feeling of social responsibility, also discussed in the egoistic section. It can be understood as assuring wellbeing
of others in everyday life or working towards that goal since one does not want to damage expectations of others. Former is related empathy and latter to guilt, both classic
examples of prosocial motivation. Another definition for social responsibility is a concern for others that includes their wellbeing, health, education and security. One form
of social responsibility is working as volunteer for a non-profit organization. (Bierhoff
2002, 157, 163.) Social responsibility is a quite vague term and in the context of this
study, it could be conceived as an individual‟s urge do his or her part by helping children and their communities through volunteering. Either with egoistic motivation to reduce one‟s guilty feelings or related to empathic feelings and altruistic motivation, to
help those in need. The truth might not be black and white. The true motivations are
probably somewhere between the egoistic-altruistic continuum or even outside it.
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5.3
General Prosocial Motivations to Participate in Volunteer Work
It was imperative to examine the typical motivations behind prosocial behaviour before
moving in to more specific context, in the case of this study it is volunteer work and
what motivates people to participate in it. Kurki (2001, 83) stated that the basic stimulator to do volunteer work is people‟s altruistic commitment and desire to help others who
are in need, though, certainly those people have also other sources of motivation to do
the work. She also pointed out a form of solidarity, called solidarity of cooperation that
could be used to describe developmental cooperation work. This type of solidarity is
based on terms and forms dictated by Western partnership organizations. Even though
the work might be on quantitative level, one must not forget the positive personal experience that people receive from participation into those projects. (Kurki 2001, 87.)
Related to the previous note on how positive experiences could motivate people to do
volunteer work, it is relevant to describe the work of Sorri (1998, 95-97) who studied
meaning of volunteer work to the volunteers. Sorri states that the nature of volunteer
work is changing and defines typical features of postmodern volunteer work as following; flexibility is participation, personal meaning of issues to one‟s own life, spontaneity,
creativity and self-guidance. He indicated that people expect to receive personal gains
from their participation to the voluntary activities. According to Sorri these aspects of
volunteer work are more suited for the values a modern society.
Bierhoff (2002, 313-314) explains that volunteerism has only lately been considered as
a form of prosocial behaviour, hence, there might be a lack of scientific studies of this
specific area compared to other forms of prosocial behaviour. Volunteerism provides
challenge for theory and research since, it can be understood as unpaid work done for
nonmaterial purposes, thus making for example economic model of human beings obsolete. Contrary to spontaneous help, volunteering involves planning and making appointments (arranging and attending meetings), establishing primacies (spending one‟s
leisure time in doing volunteer work) and attaining a fit between personal competences
and the task requirements of the volunteer work (finding meaningful tasks where one
can apply one‟s knowledge). Bierhoff continued to note that volunteer work is a good
example of a prosocial behaviour, though, it requires a more precise definition; in volunteer work prosocial behaviour is rooted in a long-term perspective that can last for
23
years and founded on a commitment to an organization that is devoted to resolve social or individual problems on worldwide or local scale.
Bierhoff (2002, 316-317) quoted his own study where he had examined the motivations
of 247 volunteers working in seven different organizations (for example German Red
Cross), this extensive study can give an insight to common motivations behind volunteerism. The following is a list of some key thematic areas of motivation revealed by the
study: social attachment, self-experience (learning about one‟s strengths), social responsibility (obligation to help those in need), self-esteem/recognition, compensation
for stress at work, career advancement (interest to work in the organization). Highest
rated thematic area was social and political responsibility.
Smith and Mackie (2007, 541) discuss about planned helping and one of its most characteristic form, volunteering, describing it as behaviour where people deliver voluntary,
sustained, and continuing benefits to others, usually for long periods of time. Important
fact reflected from this type of behaviour is that the original decision to help and later,
to continue volunteering could result from extensive thought. This thorough thought
processes in turn tend to result into long-term commitments. When an individual continues help others over and over again, he or she might start to perceive oneself as an
altruistic and caring person, thus, increasing the probability of this behaviour occurring
in the future. This also might strengthens the individual‟s perception of self-efficacy,
feeling that one‟s actions are significant and effective, again increasing the probability
of helpful attitudes and standards translating into beneficial actions.
Leskinen (2008, 15, 21) acknowledges what others scientists, and common sense,
suggests that people are motivated to participate in volunteer work for numerous reasons. Besides values, social bonds and functional reasons can be important factors in
explaining motivations for volunteerism. Values can be seen as issues that inspire
people to reflect and act to erase particular errors from the world, values active when
they are threatened. Humanistic values highlighted by human rights tend to be crucial
in volunteer work that is part of cooperation development work. According to Leskinen
there are four, rough, thematic areas of values that influence helping behaviour of Finnish. They are altruism, conventionalism (these individuals tend to be motivated by possibility to learn about other cultures and what is gained from it), egoism and individual
altruism.
24
Nylund (2008, 24-25) thinks that human beings participate in volunteer work and civil
activities to promote the welfare and flexibility of everyday life for oneself or for other
people, or to change dominating customs. One can meet others who are in similar
point in their lives and participate with them to activities one finds meaningful. She noted that several studies have found the number of volunteers and their activity in Finland to be on the general European level or even higher than some countries, though,
not higher than in other Nordic countries. In most studies active participation in volunteer work was defined as occurring at least once per year.
Kontinen (2008, 41) studied the participation motivations of Finnish volunteers in field
of cooperation development, those individuals participated to development projects in
Morogoro. She raised a question whether volunteer work done with a cooperation development organization is different some other form of volunteer work. Cooperation
development work has been traditionally done from the perspective of “from us to
them”. And hungry children in developing countries or work burden of women have
been some of the motivators for action. Kontinen had found motivations for helping and
doing good deeds; altruism, solidarity, cleaning one‟s conscience due to guilt over affluence, being helpful. She also found motivations in the area of personal development;
adventure, widening one‟s perspective about the world, social reasons, change to utilize one‟s skills, self-actualization and gaining international experience. Even though
she did not study exactly similar volunteer work as is done within Plan Finland, it is
close enough for one to make comparisons.
In their book Nylund & Yeung (2005, 15) examined volunteer work from the point of
view of the volunteers and noted that for many people volunteer work is a natural part
of their everyday life and positive experience in life. One can end up participating in
volunteer work through various ways and it offers a resting place for people who are in
different points of their lives. Participating in the activities of a community and encountering people creates a possibility to direct one‟s life towards a new direction. Harju
(2005, 74-75) specifies that in a society where individuality is valued high, voluntary
activities focus first of all to area of personal satisfaction. Individuals are willing to do a
great deal of voluntary work for an issue, they perceive as important. These activities
take place for example in NGOs and volunteers can receive different personal pleasure
and other benefits from those activities. In these modern times the fundamental motiva-
25
tional factor to participate in volunteer work can be the meaning of the issues for the
volunteer.
Yeung (2005b, 104-105) points out that the increase of individuality, that tends to accompany modernization of a society, might create challenges to motivate people to
participate in volunteer work and commit for a longer period of time. People are surrounded by ever increasing multitude of choices, this illuminates delicateness of volunteer work and motivations of volunteers and also multiple possibilities that arise from
this situation. Volunteer activities can consist from traditional and modern as well as
collective and individual elements. Thus research of voluntary activities and motivation
of volunteers can provide results that can help us to comprehend other social issues of
modern times.
Yeung (2005b, 106-114) studied extensively the motivations of volunteers Finnish
Evangelical Lutheran Church and found out fascinating themes that might be beneficial
to this study even though they are from different context of volunteer work. Some of
them are mentioned next. From the area of receiving and giving several thematic areas
of motivation where found; possibility to express oneself, positive experiences and personal wellbeing, meaningfulness of the work as a reward, emotional rewards and feeling that one is needed for instance when one moves on to pension, meaningful use of
time and willingness to help others and increase their wellbeing. Other relevant thematic areas were; positive experiences from volunteer work stimulate people to participate
and commit to volunteer work for a longer period of time, one way express one‟s identity and empathic feelings, finding new and interesting activities and hobbies for one‟s
life, counter balance to hectic life, learning new things and chance to meet new people.
Yeung (2005b, 122) concludes that the results of her study yielded surprisingly complex picture about the motivations of volunteers, where actions can be aimed towards
oneself or others. Motivations of individuals can be diverse and seem to be even contradictory, consisting from actions aimed towards both directions. For example many
people were hoping for new social contacts, though, wishing that they would be limited
only to the volunteer work. Also an individual can experience that one is part of a community even though one participated to the activities rarely or does them alone.
26
From these abovementioned general motivations to participate in volunteer work one
can deduct that the topic is not a plain mono-coloured painting where one motivation
guides all actions. Rather, it is a multi-coloured mosaic that is in constant flux, where
motivations change over time and are driven by diversity of goals.
5.4
Research Needs of Volunteerism and Prosocial Motivation
Before we move into the research data of this paper, it is relevant to take a look what
the previously cited authors suggest to study from the area of volunteer work and prosocial motivation. This will demonstrate the importance of doing this type of research.
According to Bierhoff (2002, 322, 333, 335) involvement in volunteer work has been
examined in various ways such as hours spent volunteering or willingness to volunteer,
logically different studies can provide diverse results considering what is measured. He
noted that when one measures intentions, better result might be achieved by measuring verbal responses instead of quantitative measures. Bierhoff had also other thoughts
about the future research of prosocial behaviour, one suggestion was to increase applied studies of themes such as solidarity and volunteerism. These forms of prosocial
behaviours are connected to societal developments (demographic trend of longer life
expectancy) and can be crucial in finding solutions to various social issues. He declared that after 40 years of research and theory much is known about the determinants of prosocial behaviour. Now research should focus on the processes that contribute to orientation of prosocial motivation and how this affects prosocial behaviour in
applied situations.
Nylund and Yeung (2005, 21-22) discuss about research of voluntary activities in the
Finnish context and noted that it has been studied quite extensively from the historical
perspective. Historical and societal perspectives remain important today since that data
might help us to understand the modern voluntary activities. During the beginning of
this millennia focus of the research shifted to experiences and perspectives of individuals. This might not be the result of individualistic worldview, rather the outcome of
search where the aim is find meaningfulness of the volunteer activities to everyday life
of the volunteers. Nylund and Yeung noted that by doing only quantitative research
with the help of questionnaires, it is challenging to discover the experiences and perspectives of the volunteers. One weakness of questionnaires is that the key issues of
voluntary work are defined beforehand by the researchers. Nylund and Yeung claim
27
that in Finland there is a lack of qualitative research for example from the ways how
voluntary work becomes a part of individual‟s life.
Kontinen (2008, 40) points out that there has been only a limited amount research
done in Finland from one area of volunteer work, that is cooperation development
work. General motivations to do volunteer work, altruistic and individualistic, are central
also in volunteer work done in this context. Even though the people whom the volunteers seek to help are further away than in volunteer work done in local context, individual‟s motivations to participate in volunteer work tend to be directed towards other
people and oneself. As in other type of volunteer work, likewise in volunteer work done
for cooperation development organizations, motivations of volunteers are not rigid and
change according to age and life situation of the volunteer. Pensioner volunteers typically have quite different motivations compared to young volunteers who might want to
socialize with new people and gain experiences which help one to create a career.
Leskinen (2008, 17) states that people might not be able to express their deepest motivations verbally and they can purposefully project false image of them to others. Again
the issues of readily provided questions in quantitative research became apparent and
Leskinen ponders whether people interpret the question in the right way. Same issues
are probed in different ways and answering options are lengthy due the search of consistency from the responses. Leskinen promotes the qualitative methods of research
for example interviewing people, when one is searching deeper answers. The downside of qualitative research is that the results cannot be applied universally when only
few people are interviewed. Best form of research is suggested to be one where qualitative and quantitative data is combined.
Leskinen (2008, 18) also considers whether it matters why a person is motivated to
help, for instance due to egoistic reasons, when the results are beneficial to society or
group of people. Though individuals‟ reasons to help are not always relevant, these
motivations become imperative when one considers how change could be implemented on a larger scale. Recipient of the help and working partners might also be interested of why people are helping, values and motives of the helper influence the way resources are divided and used in practice.
28
6
Research Aims
The aims of this thesis are to fulfill the needs of the working life partner, as described in
Developmental Needs section. Additional goals are, to study this topic with methods
suggested by social scientists in the previous section and engage a personal academic
challenge, by exploring a novel section of social sciences. According to Härkönen et al.
(2011, 11-12) the most important criteria of a Bachelor‟s Thesis is to engage the developmental challenges of working life and benefit the improvement of the field where one
is studying. Also it is vital that the topic awakens personal interest of the author. These
aims correlate well with the ones set for this study.
Research question of this Bachelor‟s Thesis is what motivates the long-term volunteer
workers of Plan Finland to participate in the activities and how they communicate about
Plan and their work to others. This was answered by studying the topic with the methods suggested by various social scientists, they highlighted that this type of research is
needed in the field of social sciences. The need for qualitative research about motivations of volunteer workers was highlighted for instance by Bierhoff, Nylund and Yeung.
Kontinen (2008, 40) underlines that in Finland there is a lack of research from the context of cooperation development work. Quantitative research can provide results which
might help to recognize the big picture, downside of quantitative method is that answers might be superficial or questions are understood in the wrong way by the respondents. Leskinen (2008, 17) recommends that the best way to study the motivations of volunteers is to combine quantitative and qualitative methods. In this paper the
optimal situation was achieved when data were gathered with quantitative and qualitative methods. This study aims to answers the desires of academic community as well
the needs of the working life partner and hopefully provides beneficial results for both
fields.
7
Methodology
The word method derives from the Greek word methodos which original meaning could
be translated as a pursuit, or more literally as, after a traveling (Harper 2013). There
are many roads that lead to one destination and multiple ways to study a research
question. Each road gives a unique perspective to the traveller and by navigating
through multiple ways one can gather a more holistic and diverse picture from the
29
landscape of knowledge. Berg (2009, 390) describes the main purpose of a methodological section in research paper as; part where a reader can find out how the research
was done, what type of data were gathered, how it was organized and analysed. This
is also the case in following part, where my adventures of searching answers to the
research question are expressed by explaining how the data were obtained and scrutinized.
Before taking a peek into the details of the data gathering process it is vital to describe
what type of data were used in this study. The best of both worlds, quantitative and
qualitative, were combined to produce a deeper understanding of the subject, spotlight
was on the qualitative data. Berg (2009, 3) states that ”Quality refers to the what, how,
when, and where of a thing – its essence and ambience. Qualitative research, thus,
refers to the meanings, concepts, definitions, characteristics, metaphors, symbols, and
descriptions of things. In contrast, quantitative research refers to counts and measures
of things.” Qualitative research, therefore, might provide better results when motivations of people to participate in a prosocial behaviour are examined.
Dey (1993, 13-14) notes that tensions exist between quantitative and qualitative assessment within the field of social research; ”On the one hand, qualitative data is often
presented as 'richer' and 'more valid' than quantitative data. On the other hand, it is
often dismissed as 'too subjective' because assessments are not made in terms of established standards.” Instead of myopically pointing out the pros and cons of a specific
type of data, we should focus on the bigger picture. Dey (1993, 15) continues to point
out that no matter what type data or method is used, in the end it is the product of a
researcher with an unique Weltanschauung, a comprehensive world view. Data is not
objectively collected from the world, researcher must first notice a specific thing and
decide that it is data one can use in a study. Data collection always involves selection
and various techniques such as transcription, affect the end result. This being said, one
could reason that by using both qualitative and quantitative methods one might receive
better understanding of the topic and increase objectivity of the results.
7.1
Subjects
This study focused from the beginning on the long-term volunteer workers of Plan Finland and the minimum time of participation to volunteer work was defined to one year.
30
This was done to increase the validity of the responses. Those who have been volunteering for over one year should have some insight in how the volunteer work within
Plan Finland functions. And the novelty of volunteerism might have worn off, shifting
the aim towards more 'mundane motivations‟. There was also a gap in knowledge
about how long-term volunteers communicate about Plan and what motivates them to
participate. This study aims, in part, to fill that gap. All of the participants, in qualitative
and quantitative data, were within the previously mentioned parameters.
Subjects of the primary, qualitative, data were first contacted via email by Karoliina
Tikka (from here on Tikka is referred as Plan contact person) and invited to participate
in this study. Responses were then directed to me and meetings were arranged with
the subjects, this occurred during the previously described work practice. The data
gathering technique was an interview and participants were chosen based on their
availability of time and type of volunteer work they had been doing. The strategy was to
have subjects from diverse volunteer work forms in order to gather more rounded representation. Meetings were scheduled with seven people who were interested and eager to participate. They had been doing various forms of volunteer work; translation,
office work, sorting out sponsor mail, participating to events and also organizing
events. Geographical location of the subjects was following; one person was from Oulu
and rest from Helsinki or surrounding municipalities. Demographic of the subjects was
not known beforehand, since it was not possible to predict who would participate in the
study. Two of them were over 70 years old, three people in their 60s, one in 40s and
one in 30s. Three of the participants were working and others were on pension or unemployed. There was one man, rest were women. All of them had participated in volunteer work for at least three years and three of them for over ten years.
Secondary, quantitative data were gathered by the Plan contact person in a form of an
online survey. The questions were mainly created by her, however, I suggested a few
questions which were relevant to the topic of this study and some of them were included into the survey. The online survey was open to all volunteer workers of Plan. When
reply time to the survey had ended, the Plan contact person edited the data in a way
that those who had been participating in the volunteer work for under one year, were
erased. When this procedure was done she sent the data to me. Totally there were 76
participants left, 70 of those were women. Most of them, 30, were between 35-50 years
old, 14 individuals between 18-34 years old, another 14 between 51-65 years old and
31
18 people were over 65 years old. Most of the participants, 43, were from Uusimaa and
rest were scattered around Finland. Majority of the participants, 50 people, had been
participating in volunteer work for over five years, 15 had been doing it from three to
five years and 11 individuals between one to two years.
7.2
Data
Primary data, as mentioned, consisted from interviews and most of them were conducted in face-to-face situations, one was done via telephone. Most of the participants
were from Helsinki, Vantaa or Espoo, thus, it was possible for them to travel to the
headquarters of Plan Finland which is located in Helsinki. Five of the interviews were
conducted in the office, one in a public space during World Village Festival that was
arranged in Helsinki. To gain another perspective, one volunteer from Oulu was interviewed via telephone. Berg (2009, 123) notes that a disadvantage of telephone interview is the lack of some channels of communication such as visual cues, however, in
this case the advantages noted by Hagan (2006, cited in Berg 2009, 123) such as economic cost and reach to remote geographical areas, were stronger. There was no time
or money to travel and meet the volunteer in Oulu, therefore, phone interview was a
logical option.
The interview questions (Appendix 2) were created in collaboration with the Plan contact person. Her knowledge about the volunteers of Plan Finland assisted in polishing
the questions to their final form. The data were gathered during the work practice, thus,
it was possible to use the facilities and resources of Plan Finland. Time from sending
out the invitations to participate in the study, to organizing the last interview, was approximately two months. Finding the participants and organizing the interviews was
quite effortless due to willing volunteers and access to Plan Finland's resources such
as ability to contact all the volunteers easily. The meetings were organized throughout
the two months in midst of the work practice. The key to success was to start the process of creating the questions and sending them out early, this enabled to conduct the
interviews without haste and according to ever changing schedules of the participants.
The interviews were semi-structured in nature, with set of questions asked mostly in
the same order. Additional questions were asked when a deeper understanding of an
issue was needed or to help the participants to understand and answer a question. In
the first interview one question was about the religious inclinations of the people, this
32
was removed in the following interviews since it was not relevant. Plan Finland is politically and religiously nonaligned. Otherwise the questions remained the same throughout all interviews, exception being a human error when I forgot to ask a question from
few participants. The questions considering the motivation to participate in prosocial
action such as volunteer work were influenced by various researches done and presented in the books of Bierhoff (2002) and Yeung and Nylund (2005).
Questions were a mix of open-ended and fixed ones, focusing on motivational factors
to participate to the volunteer work in the past, present and future. This was done to
gain more comprehensive understanding of the motivational factors and whether they
change with time. Another part of the research question was about the communication
of the volunteers. Separate section in the interview concentrated to how and to whom
the volunteers talk about Plan and their work. It was also inquired whether they would
be willing to discuss more about Plan and their work to others. Interviews were conducted and recorded without major hiccups and later transcribed.
Quantitative data were used in this study, in addition to the qualitative data, to increase
the validity of the results and provide a broader perspective to it. Considering the aims
and scope of a Bachelor‟s Thesis, it was neither possible nor relevant to use all of the
available data. Specific portions were selected according to their relevance to the research question. As it was mentioned in the developmental needs section, larger process of improving volunteer work within Finland was at hand and this quantitative data
were gathered for that purpose. It was fortunate that the quantitative data were available for this study, as it would have not been possible to collect it alone. Best and Harrison (2009, 413) defined internet survey methods as; ”surveys completed by respondents either by e-mail or over World Wide Web (www).” This is how the data were gathered by the Plan contact person, she contacted the volunteers of Plan Finland by email
and requested them to fill an online questionnaire. The questionnaire consists of multiple choice and open-ended questions. Confidentiality condition was that the data
should not be used or available to individuals outside this study. Reliability of the data
was increased by the fact that the invitation to fill out the questionnaire was sent only to
the volunteers of Plan Finland.
33
7.3
Analysis Techniques
When all of the interviews were conducted, they were transcribed and content analysis
was used to search themes from the texts. Berg (2009, 338-339) described content
analysis as systematic way of studying set of data in order to find themes and meanings. Content analysis is commonly used in examining diverse forms of human communications, one example being written documents. Berg also portrayed main approaches to qualitative data analysis and from those, interpretative approach was the
one used in this thesis. It enables researcher to consider human action as text and
interpret it according to the theoretical perspective one uses. Those who use general
interpretative orientation tend to compress the data and illuminate patterns of human
activities and meanings.
Investigation of themes from transcriptions of the interviews was achieved by coding
the vast amount of information. Coding is a process where certain units are counted
and from these units one can detect patterns and categories. Berg (2009, 346-349)
clarifies that when one uses content analysis in studying texts, one need to decide
what units of analysis will be counted. One can count for example; words, themes,
characters paragraphs, items, concepts or semantics. The units can be placed in categories that are created either inductively, emerging from the data, or deductively, using
existing theoretical perspectives. Combination of these two is also possible.
During the coding process of the data, two units were used, words and themes. Berg
(2009, 348) notes that smallest unit one can use in content analysis is a word, however, more useful unit to count is a theme that can be a sentence or group of words with a
subject and a predicate. The replies to each question were coded by counting words
and themes, emerging patterns and categories were then emphasized. This way it was
possible to perceive whether the majority of respondents thought in similar fashion,
unique answers were also noted. The answers of each interviewee were also observed
from a wider angle, to examine if a theme emerged from the data. For example if it
could be said that on the whole, one was altruistically motivated.
Some of the answers within the quantitative date produced, consisted from open-ended
questions. These answers were also coded in similar fashion as the qualitative data.
The replies were placed in inductive categories that were presented in statistical form.
34
The answers to what themes were prominent in the qualitative and quantitative data
are presented in the next chapter, those findings are also connected to the theories
that were presented in the previous chapter.
7.3.1
Triangulation of the Data
Triangulation is defined by Hussein (2009, 2) as:
“the use of multiple methods mainly qualitative and quantitative methods in
studying the same phenomenon for the purpose of increasing study credibility.
This implies that triangulation is the combination of two or more methodological
approaches, theoretical perspectives, data sources, investigators and analysis
methods to study the same phenomenon.”
Data, theoretical and methodical triangulation were used in this thesis.
Hussein (2009, 3-4) specifies data triangulation as use of various sources of data in the
same research in order to increase validity. Time of gathering the information by qualitative and quantitative measures was roughly the same, nonetheless, different people
were involved qualitative and quantitative data used in this thesis. He continues to explain theoretical triangulation; it is the use of different theoretical perspectives to study
the same phenomenon and it can help the researcher to perceive the issue from various angles. Hussein also specifies methodological triangulation as the use of two or
more methods such as qualitative and quantitative in examining the same phenomenon. It has been extensively used in social sciences. Before observing findings and
results, one important part of research in the social field needs to be considered, this is
of course ethics.
7.4
Ethicality of the Study
Every time one does research which involves human beings, one is obligated to consider the ethical side of the study. This is especially imperative when the topic of the
research is in some way sensitive, uses deception to achieve it aims or could otherwise
harm the participants or other people. According to Berg (2009, 78) ethical concerns
that have been in the centre of focus for two decades within behavioural research, are
the voluntary participation of subjects and whether they are aware of potential risks.
35
Overall, concept of voluntary involvement is a vital ideal in social science research,
though, in some cases it is not possible.
Achieving the ideal of voluntary participation was quite uncomplicated in this study. The
topic was not from a delicate social area since it dealt with motivations and behaviour
of people who were already participating in voluntary actions. And the volunteers were
eager to participate to another voluntary activity, this study. The subjects were informed
that the data would be used to improve the volunteer work within Plan Finland. The
possible risk that they might not have been aware is that the data is available to few
persons within Plan Finland, besides the academics who evaluate this paper.
Relevant ethical issue for this study, common for all qualitative research, is confidentially. Berg (2009 90, 92) points out the difference between confidentiality and anonymity, where the former is active attempt to erase any links from research records that
might reveal the identities of the subjects, the latter refers literally to subjects who remain anonymous. In most qualitative research, for example in interviews, anonymity is
nearly impossible since the subjects are familiar to the researcher. This increases the
significance of confidentiality. Berg also noted that securing the data is another important part of ethics, one needs to take right precautions to prevent it from becoming
public or accessible by other parties. These issues were considered in this study, when
data is presented it is done in manner where it is quite impossible to identify the
source. Only few details of the subjects are revealed such as sex and approximate age
since they might be relevant for understanding their answers. For example considering
what type of challenges and needs one might have at different chronological stages.
The data were kept in separate, though, secure locations. Stored on personal hard
drive, storage devices and cloud service called Dropbox. It was sent only to persons
involved within the thesis, teachers and Plan Finland personnel. Some early versions of
this paper were sent to opponents and friends who gave critical feedback about the
text, however, in these cases the actual data were not attached. In the quantitative data
these ethical considerations do not exist, it was an anonymous internet survey and
replies were presented in numerical form.
36
8
Findings and Results
According to Berg (2009, 392) there is a tiny distinction between findings, literal
presentation of the data, and results, clarification of how the meaning of the data were
understood by the researcher. He continues to point out that a qualitative research report which presents observations from content analysis of interview data, can combine
analysis and findings in the same section. This is the way it is done in this paper. Next
findings are presented together with results and besides the qualitative data, also the
secondary quantitative data is examined when it supports the qualitative data. Content
analysis was used to find themes and patterns from transcriptions of the seven interviews. Motivations to participate to the volunteer work are observed from past, present
and future perspectives. In the end there is one section dedicated to ways the volunteers communicate about Plan and their work.
The only deductive themes used during analyse of the data were altruistic and egoistic
theoretical perspectives, if a behaviour seemed to belong to either end of the spectrum
it was highlighted in the notes. When I began to decipher the data, reading and coding
it over and over again, certain inductive themes started to reveal themselves.
8.1
Past Motivations
One inductive theme that emerged from the qualitative data was history of helping or
volunteering. Four from the seven interviewees stated that they have been involved in
some type of volunteer work before contacting Plan Finland. The only man who participated in the study had been volunteering at a youth night cafe from one to two years,
one woman in her sixties said that she has a sister who is handicapped and been doing
volunteer work in areas related to the condition of her sister. Woman in her thirties
stated that she has been a volunteer for Finnish Red Cross and the most concrete example was from the woman in her forties. She had been volunteering 14 years abroad
for The Seamen's Mission and later for Save the Children in Finland. She remarked
(Appendix 1, Quote one) that “I have been doing volunteer work for a long
time…maybe it began from Belgium when I learned to do it…it is an integral part of me
that that I do volunteer.”
37
From this one could deduct that previous history of prosocial behaviour might increase
the chance of it occurring later or at least make it easier to act in that way again. As
Smith and Mackie (2007, 541) suggests in the theoretical section: “When an individual
continues help others over and over again, he or she might start to perceive oneself as
an altruistic and caring person, thus, increasing the probability of this behaviour occurring in the future.”
Only three of the interviewees were working at the time the data were gathered, others
were on pension or unemployed. Interestingly the three who were working, said that
they wanted to donate their time rather than their money to Plan due to financial or other reasons. One could reason that those who are working have more money and less
time on their hands, when compared to those who are not working. The woman in her
seventies underlined the abundance of time as the reason why she started volunteering, she was about to become a pensioner and wanted something meaningful to do
that would bring structure to her retiree days. One could say that this was an egoistic
reason to act in prosocial manner since she wanted something that would make her life
easier and more structural.
Availability of time was also mentioned directly or indirectly, as motivational factor to do
volunteer by other individuals who were on pension or unemployed. Yeung (2005, 106114) reports similar findings in her study of volunteer motivations: “…meaningfulness of
the work as a reward, emotional rewards and feeling that one is needed for instance
when one moves on to pension.” Kontinen (2008, 40) also notes that pensioners might
have different motivations compared to younger individuals, this could be one of those.
Social reasons played their part in motivating people to volunteer for Plan Finland.
Three of the interviewees were directly influenced by people they know, in one case a
friend of an interviewee who was volunteering for Plan Finland invited her to join. Another interviewee's son suggested that she should volunteer for Plan, the boy was also
involved in volunteer work of Plan Finland. In the third case, the spouse of the man
who was interviewed motivated him to come to do volunteer work with her. The spouse
was also interviewed in this study. Other interviewees knew Plan through the sponsorship programme and two of them found Plan by watching a TV show about the organization. It is quite clear that social processes as described by Smith & Mackie (2007, 67), play their part in motivating people to participate in volunteer work.
38
Geographical relocation of the interviewees might have been one factor in motivating
them to become a volunteer of Plan, two of them had returned to Finland after spending over a decade abroad and one moved to a new city within Finland. Need to find
new social contact was emphasized by two of them, woman in her thirties who had
moved to a new city and woman in her sixties who had spent 15 years abroad with her
husband. This could be seen as partly egoistic motivation since this was a need that
was aimed to improve the quality of their lives. Yeung (2005b, 122) also indicated the
need to find social contacts, as one motivational factor to volunteer.
One question to the interviewees concentrated on what they thought was important in
in the work of Plan. This was included to the interview since it might provide insights to
other possible motivational factors of those people. Several themes arose from the
data; flexibility of the volunteer work and helping of children were the most frequent.
For the volunteers it was important that the participation was flexible, one could attend
according to one's schedule and guilt was not imposed if one could participate only few
times per year. Other important area was the target group of Plan, children and their
communities, helping and educating them was thought as imperative by the volunteers.
New stimulus and participation to pleasant activities were also mentioned to be important. Credibility of the material and activities of Plan Finland were seen as noteworthy by one individual. Another volunteer said that she saw the global reach and message of Plan, together with its political and religious nonalignment, as important in in
the work of Plan.
When asked why they chose Plan and not another organization, previously mentioned
affiliations resurfaced. Plan was either known from a TV show, through sponsorship of
a child, someone who they knew already volunteered there. Also, some admitted that
they did not remember the original reason.
39
The way Plan operates
Other reasons
Politically and relgiously non-aligned
Trustworthiness
Sponsor related matters
Target group (children)
Perceived as "my thing"
Chance for active participation
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
Figure 1. Why did the people choose to volunteer especially for Plan? (n. 41)
The information used to create Figure one was gathered from the quantitative data, the
participants answered to an open-ended question, presented below the figure. There
were 41 responses, however, if one answer contained motivations that could fit to two
or more categories, a point were added in each category. Other reasons category was
reserved for not relevant or independent answers that were unsuitable for any other
category. When compared to the qualitative data, some comparisons emerge even
though the questions were formed in different manner. Target group and political and
religious non-alignment were noted by the interviewees and valued quite highly in the
survey replies. On a wider scale the way Plan operates seemed to be the most important factor for choosing to volunteer for Plan and not for some other NGO.
8.2
Present Motivations
The present motivations of volunteers to participate in the work were in the focus of this
study. They were probed in two ways; first by asking statements where the participant
could choose a number according to the degree one thought the statement was relevant to one‟s motivations. After this one could also elaborate the answer by one‟s own
words. Second way to examine the present motivations was to ask about them with an
open-ended question.
40
Scale from one to five was given to the statements in order to ease the respondent way
to describe his or her alignment towards it. Number one; does not at all correlate with
me. Number two; correlates somewhat with me. Number three; between those options.
Number four; correlates well with me. Number five; correlates completely with me. This
also eased the estimation whether motivation were egoistic, altruistic or something
else. In some cases no clear answers were given or the questions were understood in
different manner then intended. For example when asked whether volunteering makes
the person feel important, participants replied that the volunteer work itself is imperative
and saves money for Plan. Others replied to the same question by stating that volunteering brings meaning or pleasant activities to their life. Only one person rated that
statement bellow four.
Guilt over affluence was defined by Bierhoff (2002, 155) as one possible motivation for
prosocial behaviour and Kontinen (2008, 41) had found it to be an important factor in
study of participation motivations of Finnish volunteers in field of cooperation development. Only one participant thought it as relevant to her pointing out that (Appendix 1,
Quote two) “guilty feelings were more dominant when I started volunteering but not
that relevant anymore”. This could be seen as an egoistic motivator for prosocial behaviour. Same person also thought that volunteering decreases her anxiety level since
she is aware of suffering in the world. This increases the validity of the claim that her
motivations were at least partly egoistic. Others thought that guilt over affluence had
little or some influence to their motivations, instead they underlined will to help or to
give back. One woman in her sixties thought that is was bad reason to do volunteer
work and not at all related to her. The youngest participant agreed that doing volunteer
work decreases her anxiety since she was aware of suffering in the world. Others
thought that decreasing anxiety by volunteering correlated little or not at all with them.
In the theoretical part principlism was discussed by Batson et al. (2007, 243) as a possible motivation for prosocial behaviour. Four out of seven interviewees thought that
moral reasons were quite or completely relevant to their motivation to participate in the
volunteer work. One theme rose above others when this topic was discussed, it was
the right for people to help others if they have the opportunity to do it. This was
summed up well by one participant (Appendix 1, Quote three) ”When I am doing well
the moral side is ok, when I have the opportunity to help it would be quite dumb and
immoral if I did not use a brief moment of my time in helping others.” Even though a
41
moral right by itself was not found to be the main motivator to act prosocially, a sense
that people should help others when they can, surely guided the way those people perceived themselves and how others should act.
Social responsibility was seen as significant motivator by all the interviewees. This finding correlates with findings of Bierhoff (2002, 316-317) where he examined the motivations of 247 volunteers working in seven different organizations and found it to be most
prominent thematic area. Although the definition of social responsibility might be vague
and each individual can interpret it in different way, it might influence the motivations of
people to participate in prosocial behaviour. Few volunteers also emphasized the previously mentioned moral idea that people should help if they can.
When asked, all participants declared that improving the wellbeing of others was motivating them to volunteer to high or very high degree. One person presented tautological doubts that one can do only what one can do. Another also thought what kind of
impact one can have, however, in the end acknowledging that small deeds have an
effect. Latter is an example of self-efficacy as noted by Smith and Mackie (2007, 541).
All but one interviewee stated that empathy was very important factor for them to do
volunteer work, for one it was quite important. Empathy was seen as self-evident or
essential in general when one does volunteer work. This high level of empathy and aim
improve wellbeing of others would point out to altruistic sources of motivation such as
the ones suggested by Batson et al. (2007, 247) in the empathy-altruism hypothesis.
Fascinatingly, when asked whether they volunteer only to help others; two people rated
the scale to one, one person to three and two persons to four. They noted that one
always receives something in return. One person rated it to five and simply said that
she had no other reason to do it. This part of data suggest that people can be, at least
partly, motivated by altruistic reason to participate in prosocial behaviour.
The data points out that most of the participants perceived volunteer work as a hobby,
two individuals thought of it as somewhat in that manner. One could speculate from this
that volunteer work was not seen as the most important thing in their lives, more as one
activity among others. Five of them agreed completely that it was a counter to their
normal activity or work, which brought structure and interesting things to their lives.
Only one person rated it bellow four. This finding was similar to results of Yeung
42
(2005b, 106-114) where one motivation to volunteer was that it acted as counter balance to a hectic life.
Volunteer work was not seen as important factor in helping to resolve one's own issues. Rather when doing it people either forgot their own issues or mirrored them to
problems people were having in developing countries, thus, making personal issues
seem less significant. Learning new things about developing countries was rated quite
high by most of the participants. This was not seen as main motivating factor for them,
more as a positive side product of volunteering and as a way to expand one's
knowledge about the world.
When participants were asked about their motivations with open-ended question certain inductive themes emerged. One important was commitment to organization, knowing the people involved it the volunteer work and about Plan in general was a key factor
for many of these long-term volunteers. This was expressed well by one of the participants (Appendix 1, Quote four): “…at this moment I am motivated because I have kind
of committed to this thing…familiar things, people and actions that have been set in
motion.” Willingness to help and availability of time were also important present motivation, one woman stated this (Appendix 1, Quote five): “…hectic time is now over because the children are grownups, there is more time and I want to use it something
interesting and chance to do something good.” Organizing and participating in events
or other pleasant activities was seen as imperative by some individuals.
Figure two is based on the qualitative data, and presents the results of previously mentioned open-ended question in statistical form. As one can see from figure two various
reasons were mentioned by the interviewees, some of them even twice by separate
individuals. Social, egoistic, altruistic and practical motivations such as availability of
time motivated these individuals to prosocial behaviour. This way the quantitative results from figure three can be effortlessly compared to the qualitative ones.
43
Pleasant people and
events
2
Now lack of time to
Organizing events
participate
1,5
Knowing people who are
1
Seen as 'my thing'
involved
0,5
0
Commitment to
organization
Learning new things
Avaibility of time
Forwarding a good
cause
Helping children
Will to help
Figure 2. Present motivations of the interviewees. (n. 7)
When asked about whether they had encountered any negative things is voluntary
work of Plan Finland, only one person came up with unpleasant incident and that was
something that had been resolved at the time. Another volunteer noted that one type of
negative issue for her was when volunteer work had consumed her thoughts and she
could not stop thinking about it. In general volunteering was associated with positive
things, and one volunteer stated (Appendix 1, Quote Six): “it is extremely positive and
important, not morally important but important for humanity.”
Figure three was created from the quantitative data. Individuals replied to a question
why they do volunteer work, with their own words. The process of analysing the data
was the same as in Figure one, in total there were 45 responses. Similar thematic areas were found from quantitative and quantitative data, for example pleasant activities,
availability of time and will to help. Quantitative data suggests that people were mainly
motivated to participate in volunteer work by altruistic reasons. Smaller portion of people were motivated by clearly egoistic reasons such as receiving a good feeling from
the work. Another noteworthy factor was that volunteer work was seen as meaningful
and beneficial, though, this thematic area did not clearly fit to either end of the egoisticaltruistic spectrum.
44
Meaningful or
beneficial thing
to do
21 %
Personal
pleasure (e.g.
good feeling,
concience)
16 %
Making the
world a better
place (e.g.
helping children
abroad)
17 %
Forwarding a
good cause
8%
Availability of
time
8%
Lack of money
but will to help
8%
Will to help
10 %
Other reasons
12 %
Figure 3. Why you do volunteer work? (n. 45)
All the interviewees who replied to the question whether volunteer work of Plan is part
of their identity, answered positively. When this question was presented in the internet
survey as a form of statement, people could choose from four options which are presented within the Figure four. There were 69 replies and only a minority completely
disagreed with this statement. Majority of people, 60 percentages, agreed to some degree or completely with the statement. Commitment to organization was presented as
one motivational theme by the interviewees, this could in turn lead to perceiving volunteer work as part of one‟s identity and vice versa. It would seem that this causal relationship is one important factor in motivation of the volunteers to participate in prosocial
behaviour. There is a lack of information about how long it takes for one to commit to
volunteer work and it could be and interesting topic for another study.
45
4%
22 %
36 %
Not at all
Somewhat disagree
38 %
Somewhat agree
Completely agree
Figure 4. Plan voluntary work is part of my identity. (n. 69)
8.3
Role of Community and Reputation of Plan
It was also asked what type of meaning volunteers placed on the reputation of Plan. It
was seen as something that made the work easier as one person put it (Appendix 1,
Quote seven): “Well it is important but not an imperative factor, it is easier when you do
not have to explain everything from ground zero to people.” Another theme associated
to reputation was trustworthiness, as cooperation development work operated in developing countries, people perceived that it ensures lack of corruption and money goes
where it is supposed to go.
All the interviewees who replied to the question whether they feel that they are part of
the community, said yes. Majority of them, five, expressed that community of volunteers is vital to them. For the woman in her thirties, it was the motivation to join an extra
volunteer group within Plan Finland. The aim of this group was to increase the level of
familiarity between the volunteers and making it easier for them to participate in events.
One motive for her might have been that younger individuals, in general, tend to see
the social aspect of volunteer work more important compared to older volunteers. This
is of course individual. It seems that the community of volunteers plays an important
part in motivation of older volunteers too, one woman declared (Appendix 1, Quote
eight): “in this situation the community is the biggest...without our group I do not think I
would be as active as I am now.”
46
8.4
Future Motivations
2%
10 %
Not at all
Somewhat disagree
55 %
33 %
Somewhat agree
Completely agree
Figure 5. I want to continue to be a volunteer of Plan. (n. 69)
All participants to the interviews expressed the will to continue the volunteering with
Plan Finland in the future. The internet survey included another statement where 69
people answered to the same multiple choice question, considering their will to continue as volunteer worker of Plan Finland. Results can be seen in Figure five. Again, only
a tiny minority completely disagreed with the statement and nearly 90 percentages of
the people were willing to continue their volunteer work completely in some way. This is
another example of how committed these individuals and long-term volunteers of Plan
Finland in general are. It is good to remember that most of the people who participated
to the internet survey had been volunteering for over five years.
Few themes of future motivations were highlighted by the interviewees, one was altruistic, will to help others. As the man in his seventies acknowledged (Appendix 1, Quote
nine) “Helping others is the primary thing and one can also learn new things while volunteering.” One stated that her future motivations are similar to present ones: (Appendix 1, Quote ten) “Helping the children of the world in some way.” Another was theme
was to increase the reputation of Plan on local or national level: (Appendix 1, Quote 11)
“That we could build a steady network here in Oulu and get more people interested to
it.” Same volunteer also mentioned that it is enjoyable to organize events and participate in activities. Another volunteer noted that she participates in volunteer work simply
(Appendix 1, Quote 12) “because it is fun, I would not do it if it was boring or unpleas-
47
ant.” Commitment to organization and availability of time, when one becomes a pensioner, were also mentioned by separate participants. One thought that flexibility of the
volunteer work is essential since it enables one to participate in it during the whole lifetime of an individual, with varying degree of activity.
8.5
How Volunteers Communicate about Plan and Their Work
The interviewees seemed to talk about Plan and their volunteer work within certain
social networks, same areas were mentioned by all of them. These were friends, close
social circle for example acquaintances or neighbours, family members and for those
who were working, co-workers. All of these areas were within mundane social situations. One person was communicating about her volunteer work via written methods,
such as publishing them in local newspapers.
The frequency of communication was random to most of the participants and the topic
came up for example when a volunteer was participating in an event and future plans
were discussed with others. One person, a woman in her sixties, mentioned (Appendix
1, Quote 13) that “in the beginning my volunteer career I brought up the topic of volunteer work more frequently than today. Due to grandchildren and other issues the frequency is lower today, thought, it still comes up quite often.” Few other volunteers also
stated that they talk about Plan and their volunteer work quite often to the people they
know. One fascinating cultural and social theme was highlighted by all of the people
who were working. They thought that spreading the message of personal issues such
as volunteering in a work place was not appropriate. One person expressed it in this
way (Appendix 1, Quote 14): “But not in a working community, I have sometimes
placed sponsor flyers there. I do not think that it is not at work…if I would advertise it
there it could irritate some people.”
When asked if they would be willing to communicate more about Plan and volunteer
work, most people were sceptical or reluctant. Those two willing to communicate more,
were unsure of how they would do it. One woman clarified (Appendix 1, Quote 15): “I
feel that in a way I could do it (communicate more) but it depends on the context, I
could very well talk but I do not know where I would do it.” Also for others the context
where communication takes place was important, people saw formal presentations and
similar situations as undesirable areas. Some were more hesitant to idea of increasing
48
the level or areas of their communication. One woman clearly stated that she has no
desire for it (Appendix 1, Quote 16): “No, I remember that we organized an event...it
was quite fun to participate in it.” To elaborate the reply it was asked whether she
wants specially to talk, she replied: “No, no. When I am in an event and…I do not think
that I am in a missionary work.”
When it comes to motivations and meanings one might receive valid answers by analysing data of interviews were only relatively few people participated. Communications
is another type of topic which might benefit from quantitative approach instead of qualitative one. Data from the interviews can provide a deeper understanding to why they
communicate about Plan and their volunteer work in the way they do. Though replies of
these seven people cannot be generalized, it gives an idea of to whom and how often
people communicate about this topic. To provide a bigger picture of how volunteers of
Plan Finland communicate, one needs quantitative data. This is where the information
gathered by the Plan contact person comes in. Here are few examples in the forms of
tables and diagrams that are based on that data. Numbers represent the amount of
people who chose that particular option from the multiple choices in the internet survey.
Completely agree
10
Somewhat agree
28
Somewhat disagree
Not at all
22
15
Figure 6. I regularly communicate about Plan and my activities there to outsiders. (n. 75)
Figure six displays a good summary of how 75 people communicated about Plan and
their volunteer work at the moment the datum was gathered. Just over half of the people agreed highly or to a degree that they regularly discuss about these topics. The
data indicates that in general every second volunteer communicates quite frequently
about Plan and his or her activities there.
49
Copletely agree
5
Somewhat agree
11
Somewhat disagree
21
Not at all
32
Figure 7. I would you like to organize independent events (for instance at my work place).
(n. 69)
Figure seven points out similar findings as in the qualitative data, people are not eager
to bring their leisure activities to work place. Likewise communicating about the volunteer work or Plan at their work place was not seen as appropriate by the interviewees.
Nearly half of the respondents to the internet survey showed no interest in organizing
Plan events at their work places.
Copletely agree
16
Somewhat agree
30
Somewhat disagree
Not at all
17
7
Figure 8. I would you like to advertise the sponsorship program. (n. 70)
50
Copletely agree
9
Somewhat agree
15
Somewhat disagree
27
Not at all
18
Figure 9. I would you like to participate in the communication work
(within Plan Finland‟s or my own channels). (n. 69)
Copletely agree
5
Somewhat agree
Somewhat disagree
22
16
Not at all
23
Figure 10. I would you like to be a Plan messenger (for example
presenting Plan in events). (n. 66)
Figure eight shows that volunteers are relatively eager to communicate about one aspect of Plan, the sponsorship programme. This could be because many of them tend to
be sponsors and the topic is familiar to them. Figure nine illustrates that communication
section of the volunteer work was not seen as favourable by over half of the respondents. Figure ten presents interesting distribution of replies, over a quarter of the people
strongly disagreed and another quarter agreed to some degree. This is similar discovery as in the interviews when some people strongly expressed that they do not want to
hold presentations in formal settings and some were open to the idea but unfamiliar
how to do it. Data would indicate that the ways people communicate about Plan and
51
their work varies as much as their sources of motivation to participate in this prosocial
behaviour.
9
Conclusion
The topic of this paper implied that there is more likely more than one motivation behind prosocial behaviour. The data gathered for this thesis also supported this speculation. It was quite clear from the beginning of this study, that the results would not provide a simple answer to the age-old questions such as why people help each other.
Rather the aim was to find results, with the use of scientific method, which would shed
some light on motivations for prosocial behaviour in the context of volunteer work. The
research question of this bachelor thesis was answered by gathering quantitative and
qualitative data. It was analysed, connected to prevailing theories of motivations behind
prosocial behaviour and also to research of other scientists. This way the motivations
of the long-term volunteers were mapped and how they communicate about Plan and
their work to others was discovered. Considering that the qualitative data consisted
from seven interviews, it is not possible generalize those answers to all the volunteers
of Plan Finland. Nevertheless, those answers can provide a cognitive map of a longterm volunteer and illuminate possible key motivations of those individuals in general.
Results of the quantitative data on the other hand might offer better suggestions why
most of Plan Finland‟s long-term volunteers participate in the activities and how they
communicate about it.
Before discussing more about the motivations of prosocial behaviour, introspection is
necessary to reveal possible bias that I might have as a researcher. In the beginning of
this study I agreed with the philosophers of the past. They thought that everything one
does is done in the end to benefit oneself, even when one helps others. After reading
the literature, gathering and analysing the data, I must alter my previous perspective, at
least slightly. The qualitative data shows that all participants saw empathy as an important factor in volunteer work and improving the wellbeing of others was also significant to them. This provided evidence for altruistic motives of prosocial actions as suggested by the empathy-altruism hypothesis. Besides this, in the quantitative results
over one third of the people stated altruistic reasons when asked why they do volunteer
work.
52
One would need to study these replies more in-depth to find evidence whether participation in volunteer work was due to empathic concerns or personal distress. Individuals
who claimed that they have altruistic motivation to participate in the volunteer work,
could be motivated by egoistic reasons such as mood enhancement, increased esteem, avoiding sanctions of norm violation or escaping discrepancy. It would provide a
challenge, even for an experienced scientist, to expose the thought processes and feelings which the respondents were unaware of or unwilling to share. It is suffice for the
scope of this thesis to examine only the answers given by the respondents. And according to one of the axioms in social psychology, construction of reality, what is considered real by an individual depends on his or her cognitive and social processes. If a
person believes that she or he is doing volunteer work for altruistic reasons, it is true for
that individual.
All of motivations of the interviewees consisted from mixture of egoistic, altruistic and
other sources. None of them was evidently motivated by altruistic reasons only. One
person came close though, it was the woman in her forties who had been doing volunteer work for nearly two decades. She highlighted her will to help others as main motivation for volunteering, however, she also admitted that it acts as counter to hectic
work life and she received minor inner and social perks from it. Obvious egoistic reasons came up in quantitative data, 16 percentages of respondents were motivated by
the good feeling or conscience they achieved by doing volunteer work. Many of the
interviewees saw volunteer work as a hobby and counter to everyday life, social reasons such as importance of the volunteer group was also emphasized by few of them.
These could be seen as partly egoistic reasons. Certain answers were undoubtedly
from either end of the egoistic-altruistic continuum, on the whole most answers were
somewhere in the between. Some replies were also beyond the continuum for instance
availability of time.
Quantitative and qualitative data both suggested that people perceived volunteer work
as a meaningful and important thing to do. This would support a finding of Harju (2005,
74-75), that individuals are willing to do a great deal of voluntary work for an issue, they
perceive as important. When individuality is valued high in a society, voluntary activities
focus first of all to area of personal satisfaction. Feeling of social responsibility and idea
that it is right for people to help others if they have the opportunity to do it was strong
53
among the interviewees. It might be safe to assume that people who possess this type
of personal norm or world view are more likely to participate in volunteer work.
Prosocial motivation was briefly inspected from evolutionary perspective since it could
affect the motivation together with social influences. Humans have cognitive abilities
which enable them to function beyond bare instincts, this is why people can help others
on the far side of the planet. Still genes might influence for example the rate of empathy one feels for other thus increasing or decreasing the possible motivation to help
others. It was not in the objectives of this study to pursue that topic further, though,
combining research of social and biological influences on prosocial motivations could
provide fascinating results.
Motivations of the interviewees changed with time. In the beginning some were motivated by the need to find new social contacts, interest to learn new things or use the
available in a meaningful way. In the present motivations had changed to commitment
to the organization and people, flexibility of the volunteer work was seen as vital by
many of them. Future motivations were similar to present ones, some were eager to
advertise and improve the reputation of Plan and one person thought importance of the
volunteer work might increase in near future when she will become a pensioner. For
some of these long-term volunteers will to help was one motivation that did not change
at all with time
Considering the needs of Plan Finland and improving the volunteer work methods,
several ideas can be drawn the results. Increasing the number of volunteers could be
done by observing what type of motivations the volunteers expressed in the past. And
combining that to the information on how they communicate about Plan and their work.
In the best scenarios the targets would be individuals, who have been doing volunteer
work before since history of helping was common for the interviewees. Interest to topic
and availability of time are needed, however, these might be difficult to distinguish from
general public. Social reasons could be the key in increasing the number of volunteers.
Three of the interviewees were directly influenced to join the activities by someone they
knew and was already volunteering for Plan Finland.
According to the qualitative data volunteers communicate about Plan and their work in
similar social areas; friends, close social circle for example acquaintances or neigh-
54
bours, family members and those who were working, with co-workers. Curiously those
individuals, who were working, expressed that it was not appropriate to talk about Plan
or their volunteer work excessively at work. This was supported by the findings of
quantitative data. Organizing a Plan event in the work place was seen as undesirable
by 46 percentages of the respondents.
Quantitative data indicated that 38 out of 75 respondents communicated quite frequently about Plan and his or her activities to outsiders. Statistical data also pointed out that
communication section of the volunteer work was not seen positive by over half of the
respondents. Also some were totally opposed the idea of being a Plan messenger, and
on the other hand some were quite eager. Interviewees were too divided, some did not
want to represent Plan in formal situations and few were open to the idea but then
again oblivious of how to do it. This outcome proposes that the most frequent and preferred communication area of the long-term volunteers is their mundane social circles
and not a special occasion were they talk about Plan and their work.
This information can be used in increasing the number of volunteers, one way is to find
out those individuals who want to represent Plan and tell about their volunteer work in
formal situations. Possibilities and instructions in how to do it should be provided to
them in order to tap in to this potential resource. Other way is to use the typical areas
where the volunteers already communicate about Plan and their work to outsiders and
those they know. Current volunteers can recruit new ones from their social circles, this
way it might be easier for the new individuals to join the group.
Motivating the current long-term volunteers to continue could be done by maintaining
the level of flexibility in the volunteer work. Many of interviewees emphasized the importance of flexibility in the volunteer work of Plan Finland. People were able to participate in it when it suited their schedule and no guilt was imposed if one could participate
only few times per year. One person saw this as a way to continue volunteering
throughout her whole life time, changing the level of activity according the needs of
personal life. This finding correlates well with the findings of Sorri (1998, 95-97) who
listed typical features of postmodern volunteer work; flexibility is participation, personal
meaning of issues to one‟s own life, spontaneity, creativity and self-guidance.
55
Qualitative data showed that all long-term volunteers were willing to continue their activities in the future. And quantitative data pointed out that only two percentages of the
respondents saw no future as a volunteer of Plan Finland. Commitment to organization
was also seen as important for the interviewees. The data suggest that long-term volunteers are in general quite committed to Plan Finland, the length they had been participating is one indicator of that. Some of the interviewees had been volunteering for over
ten years and most of the participants in the internet survey, 50 individuals, for over five
years. All of the interviewees and majority of the respondents of the internet survey
agreed that volunteer work of Plan Finland is part of their identity, at least to some degree. Of course it could be that committed individuals are more eager to participate in
studies such as this and this ways the results provide an excessively positive image. In
any case these are optimistic results for Plan Finland, one possible way to improve the
current situation could be to increase the social cohesion of the volunteers. This process was in motion at the time of my work practice and should be continued, since volunteer group was seen important by many of the volunteers.
There is of course other ways to use this data to improve the quality of the volunteer
work methods within Plan Finland. It is not relevant to create a long list since in the end
it is up to the personnel of Plan Finland how they use the results of this study. Next a
few words about the process of creating this Bachelor‟s Thesis. This research project
progressed quite smoothly from beginning to the end. It required a good deal of time,
support from several individuals and personal motivation to complete it during the
summer of 2013. Some things could have been done different, for example the questions could have been more refined and shorter. This would have made them easier to
understand for the interviewees. Some questions were seen as challenging and presented possible motivations of prosocial behaviour which few of the participants had
not even considered before, however, this is not necessarily a negative thing. The
questions could have been targeted better according demographics of the participants;
most of them were over 60. When the questions were created it was not known who, if
anyone, would participate in this study.
The quantity of qualitative and quantitative data used in the study, was quite high considering that this thesis was done alone. It took rather long time to analyse it and more
thorough analysis might have been possible if additional people would have participated in the study. I chose to study this since it provided an academic challenge and as a
56
result I gained greater understanding of social psychology, prosocial behaviour, motivations, field of volunteer work and how to produce an academic research paper. On the
whole it succeeded in answering the research question. In the theoretical part various
point of views were presented. These might enable the reader to come up with his or
her own assumptions about what motivates prosocial behaviour, since, a deeper analysis of the answers was not an option in this study. In the case someone wishes to
replicate this study, it is advisable to reserve enough time to read research about motivations and prosocial behaviour, familiarize oneself with operations and volunteer work
of Plan Finland and have patience in organizing the interviews.
Last words of this paper focus on the bigger picture. What does it matter if prosocial
behaviour is an unintended consequence, instrumental goal or ultimate goal? Leskinen
(2008, 18) proposed a similar question and replied that even if individual motivations
are not always relevant, exposing the source of these motivations might lead to change
on a larger scale. Yeung (2005a, 83) stated an analogous point, research of volunteer
work and motivation to participate in it can produce results that help us in comprehending other social issues in modern times. Yet another researcher, Bierhoff (2002, 322,
333, 335), thought that studying solidarity and volunteerism, themes connected to demographic trend of longer life expectancy, might be imperative in discovering solutions
to social problems. The point raised by these scientists is the same I share after studying this topic for months. Cumulative gathering of scientific knowledge about what motivates an individual to act prosocially, in the arena of volunteer work or in everyday life,
could provide results that can be used to improve a society or even humanity as a
whole.
57
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Yeung, A (2005b) Vapaaehtoistoiminnan timantti. In: M. Nylund & A. Yeung (eds.)
Vapaaehtoistoiminta anti, arvot ja osallisuus. Jyväskylä: Gummerus Kirjapaino Oy.
Pages 104-122.
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Research Strategies. In: N. Eisenberg (ed.) The Development of Prosocial Behavior.
New York: ACADEMIC PRESS, INC. Page 110.
Appendix 1
1 (4)
Quotes from the Interviews
H = Haastattelija / Interviewer
V= Vastaaja / Interviewee
Interview (2013) Quote one, woman in her 40s. Conducted by Arto Klemola.
"Siis mähän oon tehnyt vapaaehtoistyötä tosi pitkään, et mä oon asunut pitkään
Belgiassa ja mä tein merimieskirkolle vapaaehtoistyötä. Sit ku mä tulin suomeen niin
mä oon ollu niinkun Kaapatut Lapset RY:ssä ja monessa muussa, et se on, lähti ehkä
sielt Belgiasta ku oppi tekemään vapaaehtoistyötä. Se oli tietysti ihan erilaista, mutta
tota, sieltä se lähti ja täällä sitten mun yks ystävär niin sano yhtenä päivänä et läheksä
mukaan ja sielt se sit lähti koska se on niinkun sisäistynyt muhun et mä teen
vapaaehtoistöitä"
Interview (2013) Quote two, woman in her 60s. Conducted by Arto Klemola.
H:
Teetkö
vapaaehtoistöitä
siitä
syystä,
että
tunnet
syyllisyyttä
omasta
hyvinvoinnistasi?
V: ”No, kyllä mä tohonki sanosin nelosen.”
H: ”Eli pitää hyvin paikkansa.”
V: ”Joo ja varsinkin niinkun aikasemmin ehkä nykyään ei enää niin paljon mutta sillon
aikasemmin oli niinku enempi tuota syyllisyyden tunnetta.”
Interview (2013) Quote three, woman in her 60s. Conducted by Arto Klemola.
H: Teet vapaaehtoistyötä koska se on moraalisesti oikein? Mikä merkitys moraalisilla
arvoillasi on vapaaehtoistyössä?
V: ”Joo, se pitää hyvin paikkansa. Siinä kohtaa ehkä tulee sitten kun mul menee hyvin
niin se moraali puoli siinä on ihan okei. Koska mulla on mahdollisuus niin silloin se ois
aika tyhmää ja moraalitonta, että mä en käyttäis aikaani sillon, pientä osaa mun ajasta,
siihen että mä autan muita. ”
Interview (2013) Quote four, woman in her 60s. Conducted by Arto Klemola.
H: Palataan nyt tähän presenssiin eli mikä motivoi sinua tekemään vapaaehtoistyöstä
tällä hetkellä?
V: ”Tällä hetkellä…”
H: ”Joo nytten, tässä elämäntilanteessa.”
Appendix 1
2 (4)
V: ”Jos ihan nyt otetaan tämä niin…näinä päivinä mua motivoi jo se että mä oon niin
tavallaan sittoutunut tähän hommaan. Että tuota siin on…siin on….siis mä oon niin…”
H: ”Tuttuja ihmisiä ja…?”
V: ”Tuttuja ihmisiä ja tuttuja asioita ja semmosia alulle pantuja juttuja ja semmosia jo
mietittyjä et mitäs sit jos semmosta ja tämmöstä että…”
H: ”Helppo mennä mukaan?”
V: ”Se on niin, joo.”
Interview (2013) Quote five, woman in her 40s. Conducted by Arto Klemola.
H: Mikä motivoi sinua tekemään vapaaehtoistyöstä tällä hetkellä?
V: ”Hmm, siis, mun elämäs ei oo niin kauheesti sellasta, et se hektinen aika kun lapset
on jo aikuisia niin tota sit on enemmän aikaa. Sit haluu käyttää kuitenkin sen
mielenkiintoseen asiaan ja se että urheilla ja kaikkee tällästä voi aina miten sattuu
mutta myös se että sä teet jotain hyvää. Niin se on ehkä se mun motivaatio sitten.”
Interview (2013) Quote six, woman in her 70s. Conducted by Arto Klemola.
H: Millaisia positiivisia ja negatiivisa asioita olet kohdannut vapaaehtoistyössä, löytyykö
mitään negatiivisia ylipäätään?
V: ”Ei, en mä osaa sanoa mitää negatiivista. Tää on siis äärettömän positiivinen asia,
vapaaehtoistyö, ja tärkeetä. Mä en sano moraalisesti tärkeetä vaan se on tärkeetä
ihmisyyden kannalta.
Interview (2013) Quote seven, woman in her 60s. Conducted by Arto Klemola.
H: Onko tärkeää sinulle on se, että Plan on tunnettu järjestö?
V: ”No on se tärkeä, mut ei se mikään olenainen asia ole oo, helpompi tietysti on ku ei
tartte ihan nollasta lähteä ihmisille selostamaan.”
H: ”Siel on valmiit kuviot ja tälleen.”
V: ”Niin.”
Interview (2013) Quote eight, woman in 60s. Conducted by Arto Klemola.
H: Mikä merkitys vapaaehtoisten yhteisöllä on sinulle?
Koetko olevasi osa sitä
yhteisöä?
V: ”Joo kyllä, nimenomaan se yhteisö on se oikeestaa niinkö tässä tilanteessa se
suurin…jos ei sittä nyt olis niinkö tätäki porukkaa mikä meillä on niin, tuskin sitä niin
aktiivisesti tulis oltua siinä mukana.”
Appendix 1
3 (4)
Interview (2013) Quote nine, man in his 70s. Conducted by Arto Klemola.
H: Mikä saa sinut jatkamaan vapaaehtoistyötä tulevaisuudessa?
V: ”Kai se on sitten, toisten auttaminen se ykkösasia. Ainahan sitä oppii itekin uutta ja
pitämään ittsensä kunnossa.”
Interview (2013) Quote ten, woman in her 60s. Conducted by Arto Klemola.
H: Mikä sinut jatkamaan vapaaehtoistyötä tulevaisuudessa, onko siin samat kuin
nytten?
V: ”Ihan samat joo, se että voi tota maailman lapsia jollain lailla auttaa, ehdottomasti.”
Interview (2013) Quote 11, woman in her 60s. Conducted by Arto Klemola.
H: Mikä saa sinut jatkamaan vapaaehtoistyötä tulevaisuudessa?
V: ”No kyllä varmaan se että, saatas täällä Oulussa sillai semmonen tukeva verkosto
aikaan ja tota niinku enempi vielä ihmisiä kiinnostumaan siitä ja tietenki noi tapahtumat
on sillai mukava niitä on kiva järjestää. Että kaiken näköstä toimintaa mä…semmosta
mukavaa juttua.”
Interview (2013) Quote 12, woman in 70s. Conducted by Arto Klemola.
H: Mikä saa sinut vielä sitä jatkamaan vapaaehtoistyötä?
V: ”Koska se on minusta kivaa…ihan yksinkertasesti. En mä sitä tekis jos se ois tylsää
tai ikävää.”
Interview (2013) Quote 13, woman in her 60s. Conducted by Arto Klemola.
H: Nyt tulee tästä kommunikaatiosta. Kuinka usein puhut vapaaehtoistyöstäsi muille?
V: ”Sillon alkuun mä puhuin tosi tosi paljon, mutta ehkä se nyt sitten johtuen just
lapsenlapsista ja muista niin se ei ole niin paljon mutta kyllä mä aika usein tuun
maininneeksi sen että mä teen täällä vapaahetoistyötä. Mut ei niin usein kun sillon
alussa.”
Interview (2013) Quote 14, woman in her 60s. Conducted by Arto Klemola.
H: Kuinka usein puhut vapaaehtoistyöstäsi muille?
V: ”En mitenkää säännöllisesti, kyllä mä nyt yleensä sen sitten, kyllä mun tietysti
ystävät ja tutut sen tietää. Mut en mää siis työyhteisössä, niin oon mä joskus jotakin
laittanut niitä kun on näitä kummi juttuja, mitä näitä fliyereita. En kovin paljon, jotenkin
mä koen sen että, jotenkin musta se ei kuitenkaan sielä työyssä niin…”
Appendix 1
4 (4)
H: ”Se on erikseen?”
V: ”Niin, et mä siellä sitä sitä kovasti mainostaisin, se voi ärsyttääkin jotain muitakin
ihmisiä.”
Interview (2013) Quote 15, woman in her 30s. Conducted by Arto Klemola.
H: Kiinnostaisiko sinua kertoa Planistä useammin muille ihmisille? Jos niin mitä tukea
tarvitsisit tukea siihen materiaalia, koulutusta?
V: ”Se varmaan, no toikin et kertoa joku missä mielessä et onko tarkotus pitää esitelmä
vai…”
H: ”Ylipäätäänsä vaan silleen, ylipäätään puhuu siit jossain muualla kun normaalissa
ympyröissä.”
V: ”Niin, musta tuntuu että, tavallaan voishan sitä tehdä mutta, riippuu tilanteesta ei
mua se niinkun, voisin iha hyvin puhua mutta en mä nyt just tiiä et missä mä sen tekisin
mutta.”
Interview (2013) Quote 16, woman in her 70s. Conducted by Arto Klemola.
H: Kiinnostaisiko sinua kertoa Planistä useammin muille ihmisille? Jos niin mitä tukea
tarvitsisit siihen materiaalit/koulutusta tai jotain muuta siihen?
V: ”En, muistu nyt mieleen että me järjestettiin kerran tuolla Someron kesätorilla
tämmönen Plan näyttely. Se oli ihan hauska.
Just nää tälläset tapahtumat ne on
hauskoja ja niissä olla mukana.
H: ”Niin ettei mitenkään erityisemmin ruveta puhumaan?”
V: ”Ei, ei. Sitä kun tuolla tapahtuma ja…en mä koe olevani lähetystyössä.”
Appendix 2
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Questions of the Interview
Avoimia kysymyksiä:
Mikä sai sinut lähtemään mukaan vapaaehtoistoimintaan?
Ennen kun lähdit mukaan vapaaehtoistoimintaan, tekikö joku ystävistäsi tai muista
tutuista vapaaehtoistöitä Planin tai muiden järjestöiden kanssa? Jos niin minkälainen
merkitys sillä oli siihen että lähdit toimintaan mukaan?
Mitä toivoit saavasi vapaaehtoistyöstä?
Minkä takia valitsit juuri Planin, etkä jotain toista järjestöä?
Identifioisitko itsesi Pläniläiseksi? Mikä Planin työssä on sinulle tärkeintä?
Minkälaisia vapaaehtoistöitä olet tehnyt Planillä?
Kuinka aktiivisesti olet osallistunut vapaaehtoistoimintaan?
Teetkö vapaaehtoistyötä muille järjestöille, jos niin kuinka usein?
Väittämät. Haastateltu saattoi valita alla olevasta asteikosta itselleen sopiva
vaihtoehdon ja tämän jälkeen avata vastaustaustaan omin sanoin.
1. Ei pidä lainkaan paikkaansa minun kohdalla.
2. Pitää hieman paikkansa minun kohdalla.
3. Siitä väliltä.
4. Pitää hyvin paikkansa minun kohdalla.
5. Pitää täysin paikkansa minun kohdalla.
Vapaaehtoistyö saa sinut tuntemaan tärkeäksi?
Teetkö vapaaehtoistöitä siitä syystä, että tunnet syyllisyyttä omasta hyvinvoinnistasi?
Appendix 2
2 (3)
Vapaaehtoistyö parantaa itsetuntoasi?
Teet vapaaehtoistyötä koska se on moraalisesti oikein? Mikä merkitys moraalisilla
arvoillasi on vapaaehtoistyössä?
Teet vapaaehtoistyötä parantaaksesi ihmisten elämänlaatua?
Teet vapaaehtoistyötä pelkästään auttamisen halusta?
Teet vapaaehtoistyötä koska tunnet myötätuntoa kehitysmaan ihmisiä kohtaan? Koetko
myötätunnon olevan tärkeä tekijä vapaaehtoistyöhösi?
Teet vapaaehtoistyötä koska haluat oppia lisää kehittyvien maiden asioista?
Teet vapaaehtoistyötä koska koet, että se on osa sinun sosiaalista vastuutasi?
Teet vapaaehtoistyötä koska se tarjoaa mielekästä tekemistä vastapainoksi muille
aktiviteeteillesi?
Vapaaehtoistyö auttaa sinua työstämään omia ongelmiasi?
Koet vapaaehtoistyön olevan yksi harrastuksistasi?
Teet vapaaehtoistyötä vähentääksesi omaa ahdistuneisuuttasi, sillä olet tietoinen
maailman kärsimyksistä?
Lisää avoimia kysymyksiä:
Mikä motivoi sinua tekemään vapaaehtoistyöstä tällä hetkellä?
Millaisia positiivisia ja negatiivisa asioita olet kohdannut vapaaehtoistyössä, löytyykö
mitään negatiivisia ylipäätään?
Koetko saavasi enemmän vapaaehtoistyöstä kuin annat?
Appendix 2
3 (3)
Mikä merkitys vapaaehtoisten yhteisöllä on sinulle? Koetko olevasi osa sitä yhteisöä?
Kaipaatko lisää yhteisöllisyyttä? Mikäli teet vapaaehtoistyötä yksin, koetko silti olevasi
osa yhteisöä?
Onko tärkeää sinulle on se, että Plan on tunnettu järjestö?
Kuinka usein puhut vapaaehtoistyöstäsi muille?
Kenelle yleensä kerrot Planistä tai vapaaehtoistyöstäsi?
Missä tyypillisesti kerrot Planistä muille?
Kiinnostaisiko sinua kertoa Planistä useammin muille ihmisille? Jos niin mitä tukea
tarvitsisit siihen materiaalit/koulutus/sosiaalinen?
Suunnitteletko jatkavasi vapaaehtoistyötä tulevaisuudessa? Missä muodossa?
Mikä saa sinut jatkamaan (lopettamaan) vapaaehtoistyötä tulevaisuudessa?
Miten vapaaehtoistyötä voisi parantaa tulevaisuudessa vapaaehtoisten näkökulmasta?